Chapter 25 - Profiling

“I’ve been reading about sex murders and profiling. I think either our guy is a disorganized lust killer, or he wants us to think he is. He lived in the area. He’s into kinky sex. Sadism. He hides it. The [REDACTED] injuries were to dehumanize her. He’s probably sexually dysfunctional in some way.”

Okay, we’re not profilers so the above could very well be a bunch of crap. We don’t know who killed Janette Roberson. But this is typical of the kind of message I’d get from my research assistant, Jen Carlson, on a daily basis. They weren’t all about crime scene profiling, but you get the idea. We’ve spent a couple years working on this every day—often all day, in between whatever else we were doing in our personal lives like cooking dinners and contracting roof repairs after a tornado, and dealing with kids’ IEP meetings (mine), or a kid that wasn’t put on the bus home after school on his first day (hers). We did a lot of debating that would sound a lot like bitching and/or arguing to the untrained ear. 

But that’s the kind of stuff that would float into my instant messenger app on my phone accompanied by a little ding. We were talking murder—a fairly brutal, horrific murder—so the conversation topics were usually unpleasant.

Again, let me repeat, we don’t know who murdered Janette Roberson, but we do have a copy of the fourteen page autopsy report and enough details about the scene to know that there was a sexual component to this crime. From day one, almost every newspaper article about the murder included the phrase “partially clad body,” so it had to be clear to everyone that a sexual assault was involved. Nobody spends their workday partially clad. I can also say with a fair amount of certainty that Janette did not remove any clothing on her own.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to have a chat about the sexually motivated criminal. I’m sure you’re just as averse to discussing such matters as I, but after reading the ME report, it’s one of the things that’s almost always rolling around inside my head, even in quiet moments—what was done to Janette, what she had to endure.

The evidence in the report suggests that the perpetrator was probably known to the victim, though perhaps indirectly. Random psychos don’t tend to make the kind of effort that was made here. If we were to give that kind of effort a name, it would be Rage. Vengeful; brutal; overkill. 

I’ll break it down further: this guy is a real nasty piece of work. 

That’s not stranger danger. That kind of danger lives a little closer to home.

Because this is an open investigation, I don’t feel comfortable outlining specific details of her injuries, nor is it integral to your understanding of the case to have a measurement and graphic description of each injury. But it has been widely reported that she had multiple wounds and there were multiple weapons. 

From a profiling perspective, we’re probably talking about someone with issues around women, anger, and very likely a disturbing fantasy life which propelled the action that was to follow. What kind of person does this sort of thing? Who gets up one morning, and before the evening news has time to air, has so brutalized someone, the injuries were described as “beaten beyond recognition?” 

Who ties their shoes after brushing their teeth and somewhere between there and dinner—because our guy got away, so he actually got to have dinner that night, whereas Janette did not—so how does someone go from teeth brushing, to dinner, and somewhere in between, end up so brutally assaulting someone, a trained Emergency Technician is unable to complete her duties, such was her shock on seeing the body? 

Who is this person that police have so far been unable to apprehend? Well, he’s not someone you want living next door, that’s for sure.

Profiling is an art more than a science, and just one of the things that can be used as a tool during an investigation. First, you have the clues and evidence – those hard facts in the form of items found at the scene that become your jumping-off point for the investigation. You also have statistics and the study of crime itself, which help investigators put together commonalities between crimes, as well as make assumptions based on the frequency with which they find certain acts. Then you have the study of the psyche of the perpetrator, himself.

What we call criminal profiling today harkens back to the 1800s when two doctors named George Phillips and Thomas Bond used clues from the crime scenes to make educated predictions about Jack the Ripper and his personality. There is a lot you can learn about a crime based on the evidence, and there is also much to be learned from the scene about the perpetrator.

In the 1970s, the FBI formed the Behavioral Science Unit, which was established to investigate serial rape and homicides. For a period of years, a handful of agents interviewed serial murders to help them develop theories and categories for different types of offenders based on the things they repeatedly encountered.

This is where the “organized” vs. “disorganized” crime aspect comes from.

Organized crimes are generally found to be premeditated and planned. Little evidence is found at the scene. According to the classification, organized criminals are antisocial, but do know right from wrong. They are not insane. They show no remorse.

Disorganized crimes are not planned, and as such, evidence is often found. Weapons, in the case of disorganized crimes, are usually weapons of convenience (found at the scene), rather than brought along with them. Generally speaking, disorganized criminals are young, often under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or are mentally ill. 

The organized offender is usually above average in intelligence, methodical, and his crime is carefully planned. He likely owns a car and his crime is usually committed out of his area or place of employment. He’s considered “mobile” and travels more than the average person as far as miles. 

Fantasy and ritual are important to him, thus he selects victims by a certain type, then gains control through manipulation or just pure strength. Though his victims will share common traits, they are usually strangers. The manipulation would include average to good verbal skills and he is socially adept. He is fully aware he is committing crimes and revels in his ability to thwart police. The organized offender is the type to keep souvenirs from his kills—often to relive the event—and would follow news reports, perhaps even return to the scene of the crime. This guy likes cruelty, enjoys torture, and sexually controlling his victim. He tries not to leave evidence behind and will usually bring his own weapon. He is aware of police procedures—though, these days, isn’t everyone? He often removes the body from the scene of the crime, whether to taunt police, or prevent the crime from being discovered for some amount of time.

By compare, the disorganized offender is usually below average intelligence, often a loner, often not married, and lives alone or with a relative, often in close proximity to the crime scene. He is socially inept, not good with interpersonal relationships, acts impulsively under stress, and usually picks his victims from his area. In many cases, the disorganized offender will not own a vehicle but often has access to one. Unlike the organized offender, he is often sexually incompetent and incapable of meaningful sexual relationships. His favored type of attack is the blitz style, catching his victim off guard because he is not socially able to manipulate like the organized offender. Because of this, the spontaneity required doesn’t allow for planning or a thought of being caught, which is why his scene will be disorganized, often called by investigators a “clustered” crime scene, where most of the activities take place in one location, including the confrontation, assault and sexual assault. Facial destruction or overkill are usually the marker of a disorganized offender trying to depersonalize his victim, as well as mutilation of the genitals, rectum, breasts, neck, throat and buttocks – which would have strong sexual significance to him.

While these are the major differences between the organized and disorganized offender, rarely are these offenses mutually exclusive. Both the organized and disorganized offender are capable of any and all type of behavior, depending on the circumstances. These are generalizations. 

In fact, most homicides have elements from both.

“The fact is that different offenders can exhibit the same behaviors for completely different reasons,” Brent E. Turvey (PhD - Forensic Scientist & Criminal Profiler) who’s been highly critical of the FBIs approach, said in an interview with The New Yorker magazine in 2007. “You’ve got a rapist who attacks a woman in the park and pulls her shirt up over her face. Why? What does that mean? There are ten different things it could mean. It could mean he doesn’t want to see her. It could mean he doesn’t want her to see him. It could mean he wants to see her breasts, he wants to imagine someone else, he wants to incapacitate her arms—all of those are possibilities. You can’t just look at one behavior in isolation.”

Profiling the offender is a way to identify a perpetrator based on the nature of the offense, as well as how and where it was committed. Just like everything to do with personality traits, aspects of the criminal’s personality end up determining their choices before, during, and after the crime. When investigators combine these things with the physical evidence found at a crime scene, as well as all relevant details, timeline, and witness statements, and then compare it with the characteristics of known personality types, it is possible for them to develop a working description of the offender. In some cases, it is very general; age, possible relationship status, type of employment.

It is stated repeatedly by profilers that behavior reflects personality, and that is what criminal profiling is based on. For a homicide case, insights about the perpetrator can be found in the following areas:

• Antecedent - Prior to the act, did the murderer have any plans in place? What may have triggered the violence? Often violence is triggered by a rigorous fantasy life that the perpetrator then transfers to the victim.
• Method and manner – This includes the choice of victim, the manner, IE: stabbing, strangulation, shooting, etc.
• Body disposal - Was the body hidden or left out in full view? Did the crime take place all in one location or are there multiple scenes?
• Post-offense behavior - Injecting himself or herself into the investigation. Often perpetrators will contact media, react to media reports, or even contact investigators.

So the approach is basically this: if behavior reflects personality, by examining behavior of the offender at the scene—things that were done, things that were not done, things that were taken or left behind—investigators can glean certain information about the perpetrator. But it only works when used in conjunction with the totality of the evidence and information learned during the investigation.

Criminal profiling has been found to be particularly useful as far as serial sexual homicides. These crimes can appear random for various reasons, including how a perpetrator evolves over time, gets better at covering their tracks. Also because the motive in such cases often remains unclear, since it is only known to the perpetrator. Often, sexual serial killers commit their heinous crimes based on a rich and violent fantasy life, so their motives are known only to them. Victims of serial murders can seem random because the killer did not know them, when in fact the perpetrator chooses them for various traits. Often their significance is only symbolic and ends up being the transference of rage onto a random person.

When there is no readily reliable motive like jealousy, family issues, or the murder occurs during the commission of another crime, investigators must entertain the possibility that the perpetrator is acting out his aggression on a victim or victims based on opportunity and possible symbolic reasons known only to them within their sadistic fantasy life. As noted earlier, profiling is more of an art than a science, and its success or lack thereof depends on a great deal of things, not the least of which is the person doing the profiling and the information given to them by law enforcement.

Take, for example, the profile created by criminologist/psychiatrist James A. Brussel for NYCs Mad Bomber—a sixteen-year investigation that eventually named George Metesky the perpetrator.

“Look for a heavy man. Middle-aged. Foreign born. Roman Catholic. Single. Lives with a brother or sister. When you find him chances are he’ll be wearing a double-breasted suit. Buttoned.”

His assessment turned out to be frighteningly accurate, other than the fact that Metesky lived with two single sisters. When questioned, Brussel explained it this way: The job of the psychiatrist is to study a person and make reasonable predictions about how they may react to a specific situation, as well as what they might do in the future. According to Brussel, profiling does the reverse. By studying someone’s actions, the type of person the individual might be can be deduced.

In real life, as opposed to Sherlock Holms or exciting crime fiction, a crime is rarely deduced by one piece of evidence in an Aha! moment that leaves everyone in the vicinity breathless. Sure, a hit on fingerprints might cause that type of moment, but a lot must go into an investigation to get to that point.

From Sergeant Cuff in Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone: “At one end of the inquiry there was a murder, and at the other end there was a spot of ink on a tablecloth that nobody could account for. In all my experience . . . I have never met with such a thing as a trifle yet.”

There are no trifles, not in criminal investigations. Everything matters. 

As Chief Golnick of the Cadillac PD told me, when training his officers to document the scene, “It’s not just what’s there. Sometimes it’s what isn’t there. You have to get it all.”

Criminal profiling is an educated attempt to suss out specific information about a certain type of suspect using all of those, as well as patterns of behavior based on leads and evidence obtained by trained, perceptive investigators.

To understand all that is required to formulate a criminal profile, see the chart below from Criminal Profiling from Crime Scene Analysis (John E. Douglas, Robert K. Ressler, Ann W. Burgess, Carol R. Hartman - U.S. Department of Justice, provided by the FBI’s Training Division and Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico, Virginia. Originally published in 1986.)

Though criminal profiling certainly has its critics—those who cite the lack of empirical or scientific evidence suggesting its relevance—it is hard to undermine the fact that having gathered all the information in the chart above, a well-seasoned investigator couldn’t come up with some helpful supposition. Obviously you want everything you can get from the crime scene, as well as related police reports and forensic information, if you want an idea of who may have committed a murder. 

Victimology, though, is also important. The study of the victim or victims of a particular offender is of significance.

Brent Turvey summed it up well: “In the rush to examine a criminal’s behavior, it is not difficult to become distracted by the dangling carrot of that criminal’s potential characteristics and forget about the value of understanding his victims.”

Victimology is essentially victim profiling. According to Turvey, the following information would be essential to victim profilers in working a case:

• Physical traits
• Marital status
• Personal lifestyle
• Occupation
• Education
• Medical history
• Criminal justice system history
• Last known activities, including a timeline of events
• Personal diaries (if known and available)
• Map of travel prior to offence
• Drug and alcohol history
• Friends and enemies
• Family background
• Employment history

Other important questions you would seek to answer regarding a victimology are as follows:

• Why was this person targeted?
• How were they targeted? Were they a victim of opportunity, or random?
• What risk was taken by the perpetrator to commit the crime?
• How was the victim approached, restrained, and/or attacked?
• What was the victim’s likely reaction?

Combine the answers to these questions with the perpetrator profile, and investigators may get valuable information about the motive and MO of the offender, as well as other information like their background or knowledge of police procedures, occupation, social skills, and personal characteristics. Armed with this information, the profiler can make inferences about the offender that, when added to witness accounts and crime scene information, help narrow down the suspect field.

The method of attack, or degree of force used is also revelatory. 

As in the case of Janette Roberson, for example, overwhelming physical assault and excessive use of force speaks to rage on the part of the assailant.

If we were to get all Jungy with it (Jungian) and you were to rule out deliberate mutilation to make victim identification more difficult, overkill can stem from a narcissistic rage and deep-seated hatred of women, and the perpetrator would be hard-pressed to recognize it in themselves, mostly because of their skewed sense of self-awareness.

Jack the Ripper, for example, mutilated his victims – who were prostitutes—as an expression of a suspected rabid hatred of women. Another example: Joran van der Sloot, who you might remember from the much publicized Natalee Holloway case, the student who went missing while on a school sponsored vacation in Aruba. Joran’s psychological evaluation from prison suggests an immature, selfish, self-centered man-child. Angry with parents, authority, God, angry with life.

It’s almost a cliché at this point, isn’t it? The narcissistic psychopath or a criminal with a diagnosed antisocial personality disorder often demonstrates a low tolerance for frustration, emotional immaturity, a need for constant stimulation, and a hostile, dominating attitude toward women. These things are seen across the board with rage killings performed by males where overkill is involved, particularly when the victim is not a relation, but chosen for other reasons, or at random.

This narcissism often convinces perpetrators that they can outsmart or “game” the system. Van der Sloot, for example, had a reported compulsive gambling issue that likely reflected his highly narcissistic overconfidence that he could beat the casinos. Gambling is also something seen quite often as a way to compensate for the need for “constant stimulation.”

Lying, too, is common in the antisocial or psychopathically narcissistic offender. Again, “gaming” the system, because what is lying if not “gaming” life by forcefully altering the facts to suit your own needs? Some other sparkling traits of the psychopathically narcissistic offender are manipulation, deflection of responsibility, impulsivity, rationalization, deceitfulness, conning, lack of remorse, pervasive disregard for the rights of others, physical aggressiveness, sadistic cruelty, irresponsibility, grandiosity, absence of empathy, and malingering, just to note a few.

Malingering is lazy, idle, indolent. I had to look that one up. But it makes sense if you think about it. 

You do it. I’m gonna sit over here and be right and justified about everything I do or say and if you challenge me, you won’t like the results.

So, yeah, not your basic hug-monkey. You don’t want to deal with the psychopathically narcissistic human if possible because they don’t feel the rules apply to them. In fact, they tend to get darned touchy when you suggest they do. Imagine what someone like this would do if he came on to you and you were a married woman who nervously chuckled in an effort to fend off his unwanted advances. 

Maybe he thinks you’re laughing at him. That wouldn’t be good. Many an attack have started that way; a psychopath set off in a rage by a trifling offense that upset his delicate sense of it’s-all-about-me. 

My wants and needs.

So, how does all of this relate to the murder of Janette Roberson, you’re probably asking. Well, for starters, the answer to the whodunit exists within the confines of all these questions. 

Let’s look to victimology. 

As far as physical traits, she was of small build and is regularly described as shy. She was married, had two children, and her lifestyle, according to everyone I spoke to, suggested nothing out of the ordinary that would cause her to be at great risk to be victimized. Essentially, she was a nice, normal housewife. Her occupation was that of a store clerk who was good with animals. She has no prior criminal history, her education was elementary at best, and no medical history to speak of that would play into her murder. By all accounts, her last known activities were working, although according to Flossie, her co-worker, Janette left the Gambles store at some point earlier that morning after what she said was a call from the school. She had no drug and/or alcohol history, no enemies that anyone was aware of, and her employment history in Reed City was noted as a short stint at Nartron before she was laid off and began working at the Gambles pet store. 

As for family history, her parents were divorced, and at the time, the only relatives (other than her husband and kids) that lived close enough to be a day-to-day part of Janette’s life were her brother and mother, Marion Fisher.

Nothing about her history suggests any issues large enough to result in murder. She wasn’t a drug user, she didn’t work in a high-risk job—meaning she wasn’t surrounded with less than stellar folks on a daily basis like you would expect with, say, a prostitute. That’s the type of high-risk job that regularly puts you in harms’ way. 

Where Janette worked was so off the beaten path that it pretty much rules out a random attack, in and of itself, but when you take into account the very personal physical assault, and the length of time it would have taken to inflict so many injuries, particularly given this occurred in a public place, the suggestion is that the perpetrator was at least somewhat familiar with the store and pet department. 

That is not to say that the perpetrator planned the attack. Blind rage could have been the thing that literally removed the perpetrator from the immediate realities. He may not have considered anything other than meeting his need to violate. Maybe he knew the pet department wasn’t exactly a high-traffic area and that’s why he found himself down there alone with her in the first place, having taken the chance to be alone with her.

Every customer I spoke to who was in the pet department that day describes it as being slow and most of them never even ran into other customers, except for Jan Palumbo, who only recalls seeing other customers down there right as she and Venus were about to leave; a group that suddenly collected down there out of nowhere like they were all together.

This crime wasn’t a “knock her over the head and get the hell out of dodge” type of crime. It was much more than that, though the risk assessment would suggest the perpetrator did take a great deal of risk, given the attack occurred in a store in the middle of the day. This didn’t happen in a location where her attacker had complete control of the situation.

It is very likely that Janette was quickly incapacitated. 

There was no screaming heard by employees, otherwise they’d have come running downstairs to her aid. 

Having been down in that basement, one thing I can tell you with certainty is that if she would have screamed, someone would have heard. While I was down there, I could hear every word spoken upstairs, and every footfall on the creaky wood floor.

I don’t believe she expected the attack; I don't believe she had time to scream.

...to be continued...

Chapter 24 - 1986

The first supplemental of the New Year is dated January 16, 1986, just three days shy of the three year anniversary of Janette Roberson’s death. There are a couple more interviews done with regard to “Dan,” including someone he lived with in 1985, but the next month, the February supplemental dated the 26^th, the MSP report notes: “The Undersigned [Albright] officer and Detective Morris Vincent were contacted by Detective Lieutenant Robert Smith, 6^th District Headquarters in reference to this investigation. He requested the officers re-contact all store employees, and re-interview them in reference to this particular homicide.”

So that’s what they did. Donna Evans, Angie Tillie, Flossie Earnest, David Engels (store owner), Bonnie Engels (David’s wife), David Sandlin, John Engels (store manager), and then they went back the next day to speak with Bonnie Engels one more time. All of these statements have been redacted in their entirety, as have their initial interviews.

The only two lines left un-redacted in the Michigan State Police report is under the interview of John Engels on February 26^th and it reads: 

“In going back over the day of the incident, John Engels could add nothing further that happened that day that could help officers in reference to this investigation.”

All blank pages, and then that. I will never figure out the method to MSP’s FOIA Madness.

John Engels was the only Engels I was able to speak to regarding this case, and the conversation wasn’t a comfortable one, which was confusing because he had given his number freely to be contacted. 

Jen, the gal who would become my research assistant—but was just a curious observer at the time we spoke to him—contacted a woman who police spoke to regarding the case, and happened to notice that John Engels was one of the people on her friends list on Facebook. 

Jen asked for an introduction, the woman obliged, and John Engels passed on his phone number.

I hate contacting people I don’t know. It makes me queasy. I fobbed off a lot of the required telephone work for this project on Jen, but in this case, both of us were excited at the possibility of speaking with anyone who’d been at Gambles that day. At that point, I’d only had the opportunity to speak to Flossie, who’d attended the memorial walk, and Gene Johnson, who’d had a brief exchange with Janette the day of the murder.

Flossie was, in fact, the one who suggested we speak to John Engels. Her most vivid recollection was of him “taking the stairs two at a time” from upstairs, where she thought he was having his lunch. When Angie Tillie came back up from the basement, distraught and unable to speak after finding Janette, Flossie had yelled, “John, I think Angie is having a heart attack!”

Needless to say, we were both confused when Jen’s call was met with hostility.

JEN THE ASSISTANT: Engels won’t say anything. Someone told him I’m writing a book. He doesn’t wanna get sued.

ME: He doesn’t wanna get sued? What does that mean? Is he planning on implicating someone? Ugh, fine…give me his number.

I’m not made for this sort of thing. I don’t like putting people out. I’m uncomfortable bothering strangers. I don’t even like talking on the phone, yet I’ve had to bother a great deal of strangers over the phone while researching this book. I happen to be the type who gets stress eczema just thinking about making an uncomfortable phone call. 

As I type this now, I have a huge patch of the stuff on my left hand because days ago I found out that Detective Pratt has agreed to meet with me, and I very much want him to like me. It’s ridiculous, I know, but I have that stupid people-pleaser gene, despite all evidence to the contrary. I’m aware that most folks who’ve met me might think this flies in the face of everything they’ve ever observed, but they’d be wrong. You know that whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” deal? I’m a goddamn ray of sunshine who is brash and sassy on the outside, and a quivering melted mush of marshmallow goop on the inside. You’ll have to take my word for that.

I dreaded the call, but what spurred me on was curiosity regarding his tone with Jen. I was pondering someone’s possible motivation to be cranky with a total stranger as I jabbed the buttons on my phone and moved into the kitchen, away from the television that my son was listening to at an ear-splitting decibel level. 

A female answered and I asked for John Engels. She asked who was calling and I said Jeni Decker. I heard her repeat this and then say, “I don’t know.”

When he got on the phone, I told him I was the writer in question. I think it is important to stop here and note that at the time I spoke to John Engels, I had absolutely ZERO intention of writing this book. I had told Janette’s sister that I was thinking about basing a fictional character involved in a three-decades-old crime on Janette’s murder, but most of it wouldn’t even resemble this case because I’d already started writing the crime novel I was considering using it for as a subplot, so I’d have to weave the narratives together. 

Mostly, I liked the idea of a creepy basement pet department in a store that was located in a small town, and those underground tunnels I’d heard so much about. 

Certainly the general public had no idea about this because I didn’t even know what I was going to do with the fictional account. As a matter of fact, that episode in my Dex Morneau series sits on my hard drive right now, half written. It got booted out of the lineup by what you’re reading.**

**NOTE: (De Profundis - Book Four in my Dex Morneau crime series, has since been completed.)

But I'd already started a storyline that took place in Reed City, which began in book three of that series, titled Gravoria Manent, and I had to work whatever I used into the already occuring narrative. 

What I had done was written my very first FOIA request to Michigan State Police, less than two weeks prior to speaking to Mr. Engels. I didn’t even realize police reports on open cases were available to the public until I read an article about a true crime writer named Blaine Pardoe, who’d covered a couple of Michigan’s unsolved murders.

In the article, he mentioned sending requests for crime scene photos and police reports to MSP, so I emailed Mr. Pardoe and asked how he went about it. He emailed me back a copy of the letter he sent to Michigan State Police to get materials for his latest book, Murder in Battle Creek: The Mysterious Death of Daisy Zick. I, in turn, used Mr. Pardoe’s letter—word for word—removing his information and inserting mine. So, at the time I spoke with John Engels, this would have been the only thing that existed anywhere suggesting any intent on my part to write a non-fiction account of the murder. It was not my intention to do anything at that time other than get more information on Janette’s murder, simply because I found it fascinating.

It was only after speaking with John Engels that I thought Maybe I will write a non-fiction book. 

In fact, today, as I write this, I pinpoint that very conversation as the turning point. His tone during the call is what sealed the deal. I readily admit to having grown into one of those adults who doesn’t like being told what to do. And it’s a really bad idea to tell me not to do something. Telling me to let something go is probably the best way to light a fire under my ass.

I’ve found that behind the leave it alone or let it go is usually a very good reason to do the exact opposite. 

Also, have I mentioned I’m stubborn?

Anyway, here I am on the phone, and I’ve introduced myself. I tell John Engels that I’m the writer in question, but I wasn’t writing true crime. Mostly I was curious. I contacted him after talking to Flossie Earnest—his former co-worker—who specifically said to me, “Did you talk to John?”

In his conversation with Jen, John Engels said he’d heard she was a writer and he didn’t want to speak with a writer because if he told her anything and she published it, he could be sued for slander. That’s not actually how it works in real life, but okay… I figured I’d just disabuse him of that misinformed notion and we’d move on. I assured him that I wasn’t interested in speculation regarding who he thought committed the heinous act. I simply wanted to know if he and his brother, David Engels, were at Gambles when Janette’s body was discovered.

“I don’t have to tell you anything, get the report," he said.

I felt my right eyebrow make for higher ground. 

“Oh, I am," I said. "The request has already been sent.” 

My inner monologue suggested I reply with Thanks for the suggestion, Mr. Crankypants, but I stifled the urge because my inner monologue is a troublemaker.

John Engels was contentious from the start, but never appeared to want to hang up. There were more than a few uncomfortable silences as I waited for him to hang up on me, but he never did. What was most interesting was his tone, since John Engels is a former law enforcement officer. He worked for the Saginaw Police Department before moving to the area to work at Gambles with his brother.

It has been my experience when speaking with police that 100% of the time they do more listening than talking. They want to know what you know and the good ones know how to get that information out of you without you even realizing they’re doing it. Their tone is usually encouraging in that regard because it takes some amount of finesse in order to pull that off, but every good cop I’ve ever met has that particular skill set. They’ll give and take just enough to “shake you down for the deets” as the kids say. That, however, was not John Engels’ way.

To make him more comfortable, I assured him that I understood he was a former member of law enforcement and wouldn’t expect him to share specific details about a case with me. I only wanted to establish whether he and his brother David were both present at Gambles when Janette’s body was found, because I’d gotten conflicting information on that. He remained tight-lipped.

Next he questioned my motives. I told him that I’d helped work on the memorial walk for Janette and I was curious. Her case interested me in the same way an episode of Dateline might.

I was only asking because Flossie told me she remembered both he and David being there when the body was found, but according to a letter written by Ralph Fisher sometime after the murder, Ralph spoke to the manager of Gambles, who told him he was notified of Janette’s death, and then came to the store. Whether Ralph Fisher spoke to David Engels or John Engels is unclear. He said “manager” in the letter—and according to the MSP report, that was John Engels’ position—but Ralph could have used the word ‘manager’ to describe the owner, too. I explained all of this to John, but he wasn’t budging.

Argumentative is the one word summation of my approximately twenty minute chat with John Engels. I told him we’d received some tips at the memorial walk, and I had gotten one while handing out fliers from someone who’d never spoken to police. This one, in particular, was a strange occurrence two different people relayed to me about something they saw on the corner of Chestnut and Upton right around the time the murder would have occurred.

I told Mr. Engels I had passed that information along to law enforcement officers, but when he asked me what that information was and I wouldn’t tell him, he said, “Then why should I open up to you?”

“I am not asking you to open up to me. I have one question. Were both you and David present at the store when the body was found,” I tried again.

“Get a copy of the police report,” he repeated.

When I mentioned that people—including some in law enforcement—had suggested the initial investigation was not handled properly, he said, “People always say that. They did their best.”

I told him multiple people had mentioned a cop who shared specific information about Janette’s injuries with them and I found that troubling. 

He replied, “Finkbeiner was a friend of mine. He was a good cop. We were friends. He died too young.”

“How do you know I was talking about Finkbeiner?”

I hadn’t mentioned anyone by name.

He responded, “It’s common knowledge he was first on the scene.”

I didn’t have the report at the time, so it wasn’t common knowledge to me, but I didn’t say that out loud because he was still talking.

“People remember things wrong, it’s been 30 years—who did that letter of Ralph’s go to?”

I was momentarily thrown off by him circling back to Ralph Fisher’s letter. I told him I had no idea who the letter went to.

Then he began questioning my motives again. 

"So why are you doing this if you’re not going to write a book?”

Why? Because I want to know. I want to know if she smiled at her killer, I want to know if she knew him, or if he took her by surprise. I want to know the last emotion she felt before she realized what was happening. I want to understand her end; I want to know how Janette Roberson’s world ended. How can you not want to know?

But that’s not what I said. This is what I said:

“Whether or not I decide to write a fictional account is irrelevant. I want to know who killed this girl in the middle of the day, just as an average citizen.”

I stopped short of suggesting this wasn’t Nazi Germany. Here in the good ‘ole US of A, we’re allowed to write whatever kind of books we want to write, or not write them, and pick whatever fancy adjectives and adverbs we wish to use in any book we may or may not write.

“Why should I talk if everyone is pointing fingers? I know I didn’t do it. You sound like you think I did it.”

I never once said anything even remotely close to that, but since he’d mentioned the word slander earlier in the conversation, I was quick to reply. “I absolutely do not think you did it. You are misunderstanding me. Flossie specifically said I should talk to you, so that’s what I’m doing. I thought it would be rude not to get your side, wouldn’t it? You were the store manager. Your brother was the store owner. If I hadn’t called and tried to talk to you, wouldn’t that be weird, not giving you an opportunity to answer questions, just like everyone else?”

“Tell me what this suspicious activity was that you say people saw,” he tried again. 

I was tempted to ask again if he and David were present when Janette’s body was found. See how many times we could complete the vicious cycle before one of us tossed the phone across the room.

“I can’t say, but rest assured it has been turned over to police. These are all people who never spoke with law enforcement before, so I can’t share it with you. I’m sure you understand that, being a former cop.”

The conversation was over at that point. I have no idea why he was so contentious from the start, but I didn’t expect to get that kind of reaction from a former cop. Anyone who didn’t wish to speak to me just declined and that was that. I’m not a reporter. I don’t go chasing people or harassing them. I respect the word no. I did my due diligence and gave every person I could track down whose name was in the MSP report (and wasn’t already dead) a chance to tell me what they remembered, and most people were genuinely happy to oblige.

Near the end of the conversation I told him that—how helpful everyone had been about what they remembered, and how the residents of Reed City wanted the case solved. I was just blathering by that point, trying to end on a good note, mostly because I felt bad for having upset him. Maybe he was just having a bad day.

John Engels reply: “Good for them.”

Months later, I mailed a letter to the residence of David and Bonnie Engels, asking if they would consider speaking to me. I told them I had decided to write a true crime book about the murder, and since the only interaction I had with anyone in their family did not go smoothly, I felt it would be unfair to leave my conversation with John as the only impression of their family regarding this case for the readers.

They never replied.

...to be continued...

Chapter 23 - Investigation continued...

September, 1985; The next group questioned in the Janette Roberson investigation was affiliated with the Jehovah’s Witness church she attended in Evart. After that, police circled the wagons around people who lived in Meadowview, her apartment complex.

Patricia Knapp, who said she’d been to Janette’s house on a few occasions, Condra Lynn Casavettes, Jeffrey Scott Lucha, and Donald Knapp, Patricia’s husband.

Detective Albright re-interviewed Marion Fisher at her home in LeRoy on September 18, 1985, according to the MSP report, “…about how she was advised of the death of her daughter, and what had happened that night.” 

Marion told them “…she was working as the city clerk in the city building on the day of the murder, and approximately 3:45pm to 4:00pm Larry Finkbeiner of the Reed City Police Department came to the City building and told her that Janette was dead, that an incident had happened at the Gambles store. She stated that somewhere around 5:00pm, the city manager took her over to Alvin’s residence on Mill Street [Meadowview Apartments] where she stayed until the police arrived, which she felt was somewhere around 8:30 to 9:00pm. She stated that during the time she was at Alvin’s, she did remember Alan Foote coming to the residence and also that “Dan” came to the residence with another young boy that she did not know. She stated that the entire evening was somewhat of a blank to her, she was not sure what time “Dan” came to the residence but that he was in fact there.”

The first section of interest is how she was advised of the death of her daughter. The ME report says the body was discovered at approximately 3:50pm, though there is obviously no record for the 14 minutes prior to Officers Finkbeiner and Primeau’s arrival time of 4:04. It isn’t written in the Reed City report what time Officer Finkbeiner notified Marion Fisher. The report flatly states that the undersigned officers [Finkbeiner and Primeau] “From 4:04 to 8:00pm did maintain building security white (sic) crime lab conducted search for evidence.”

Whether Marion Fisher’s notification time—per her recollection—is accurate, is unclear. 

Unfortunately, we only have The Finkbeiner/Primeau report to go on as far as the time they arrived. If accurate, Marion was notified minutes after Officer Finkbeiner first saw her daughter’s body. He would’ve had to leave the Gambles store, head to the city building a few blocks down Upton, after having just turned the scene over to Southworth—who would, at the same time (according to his report) be outside making calls at his patrol car, which would have left Deputy Oyster and Officer Primeau at the scene with EMT Gary McGhee.

Whatever the specifics, it seems Detective Albright was trying to get a clear picture of exactly what happened just after the discovery of the body. 

Once he spoke with Marion Fisher, he interviewed Chris Casavettes. Chris’s father had been a customer in the store that morning, but that is not what they were questioning him about. I spoke with Chris in October of 2014 and asked him to tell me his connection to the case, and what he remembered about the incident.

He said on January 19, 1983, he was going to a friend’s house after school around 5:00pm or so. He remembers it was starting to get dark. The friends—one of whom was Patricia Knapp—had heard a blurb on the 5 o’clock news about a murder down at Gambles, and when he got there, they were all excited to find out what had happened. They wanted Chris to go down and ask Janette about it because they knew he was friends with her. So he put on his coat and headed over to Janette’s. They all lived in the same apartment complex.

“Thank God the little Langworthy girl intercepted me,” Chris told me on the phone. “She was running toward me from Jenny’s house and she said, ‘Chris, Jenny’s mom’s dead.’”

Chris said his sister Kelly was over at the Langworthy’s at the time, and she confirmed it. But he wasn’t questioned at the time of the murder. A couple years later he was living in Middleville with relatives and some state police showed up. He said their questions were mostly about “Dan.” 

Apparently “Dan” had made a WANTED poster over at the Career Center in computer class and hung it in his bedroom window, which Chris took as “jestful.” It seems “Dan” thought the police believed he’d killed Janette, and he was feeling the pressure, so he acted out like awkward teenagers tend to do in situations where they have no idea how they’re supposed to be acting, nor do they fully appreciate the possible ramifications of their impulsive actions. 

I mean, how do you act when this older girl you like gets murdered? One of his buddies probably should have—and likely did—tell him that putting a WANTED poster with his name on it in his bedroom window for the whole apartment complex to see probably wasn’t the best way to go.

In any event, that’s what police wanted to speak to Chris Casavettes about when they came to interview him in 1985. Chris told me he never knew “Dan” to be violent, and didn’t see him as the type to kill someone. He said the police also asked if Janette was the type to do drugs, or if Chris knew if she was having an affair with “Dan.” He told them No to both, as far as he knew.

I told him I’d been trying to track down Patricia Knapp, with little luck. Chris said that he didn’t think she really knew Janette much at the time, but she lived in the same part of the building that “Dan” lived, so maybe that’s why they were questioning her. According to Chris, he knew Janette better than Patricia did, which is why she had asked him to go check when they’d heard on the news about someone getting murdered at Gambles.

I asked him to tell me about Janette. Chris said he met her the day the Robersons moved into the Meadowview apartments. He and a friend were playing ball and wrestling in front of an empty apartment next to the one Janette and Alvin were moving into.

“I saw that Nova pull up and a man, woman, and kids got out. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. After she and the man went inside, I asked the kids if that was their sister. They laughed and said, ‘No, our mom!’”

“Then I got to know her and she was the sweetest person you’d ever want to meet. She had an infectious personality. Just a super nice person.”

I asked about the Roberson family dynamic and Chris said they were good kids and Janette was nice. Alvin was quiet and soft-spoken. He said over the years—after the murder—he watched so many of those crime shows and 99% of the time it’s the husband. He always tried to figure out why, in this case, it couldn’t be the husband. Because he didn’t think it was. He said Alvin didn’t seem the type. He worked a lot, mostly he seemed tired, and the relationship looked like a normal “mundane” marriage. He said he thought Alvin was a bit older than Janette, but it was clear to him that Janette really loved him. I asked if Chris had ever seen anything that made him think Alvin could have killed his wife. He said no.

Then Chris sighed and said, “You know, the only crack I ever saw was one night, I was at their house hanging with the kids and I went upstairs to the bathroom to pee. I accidentally saw Janette and Alvin in the bedroom having a serious conversation. I only heard Alvin say, ‘Damn it, I never get to see the kids, anyway.’”

To his recollection, this happened in October or November of ‘82. That’s the only sentence Chris heard from the conversation, without context, and he always tried to figure out what it might have meant. The only thing that came to mind was that in the months before, he says the kids told him they were moving back to Georgia, but it never materialized. Chris speculated that maybe Alvin wanted to go back to Georgia, and Janette wanted to stay in Reed City near her mom and brother. He said he had no idea if that was the case, it was pure speculation, but that’s really the only thing he ever saw that made him wonder if it was Alvin. When they were together, they acted like a “normal” married couple as far as he could tell.

Having heard that teens from the apartment complex seemed to gravitate to Janette’s apartment, I asked if people generally hung out there. Chris said yes, that she was very friendly, and they were all just sort of in and out.

In the MSP report, Thomas Hawkins (currently serving time for multiple counts of Criminal Sexual Conduct with minors) was the next interview, done by Detective Albright. Then Patricia Knapp, again, as well as “Dan,” and then multiple people who lived in close proximity to Gambles were given short interviews, probably to determine if they had seen anything odd that day.

The man that was supposed to bring his mother-in-law to look at a bird that day was interviewed on September 25^th, 1985.  Because his mother-in-law was “Dan’s” mom, some of that interview centered around “Dan.”

This gentleman lived in Hersey, Michigan when he was younger, near the Fishers, who also lived there at the time. He knew Janette’s brother and sister as kids, and he was one of the boys Marion used to drive to youth group on Wednesday nights. He didn’t know Janette much because she’d moved away young and didn’t come back until years later. He only remembers meeting her a few times.

He said Janette was friends with both “Dan” and “Dan’s” mother. He told me when the police came to question him (years later) they asked why he had not made it to Gambles that day. He told them they’d just forgotten. He assumed they’d spoken to the mother-in-law and she told them the story, so they were just confirming it with him. He also remembered “Dan’s” mother saying her son was “devastated and thinks everyone believes he did it.”

He described “Dan” as slow and not good in school. He said he thought he had a crush on Janette, and although he did find the difference in their ages a bit odd since “Dan” was at her apartment so much, he didn’t remember Alvin being around a lot.

I asked if he thought “Dan” seemed like the violent type.

“No. He was just… he struggled in school, didn’t like it. He was a loafer.”

Nobody I spoke to thought “Dan” was the violent type or could picture him killing anyone. 

I tried to contact “Dan” to get his version of events and learn a bit more about his relationship with Janette. 

I got this response: “So you are trying to make a buck on a friend of mine (sic) death. Don’t bother me.”

I could have explained to him the error of his assumption, given it is unlikely that will happen based on what I’ve already put into this project, but to what end? Live right, folks. That’s the best defense against an ignorant accusation. One needn’t worry about defending oneself if you’re on the right side of the truth.

On October 4, 1984 Detective Albright mentions a letter he sent to Elke Johnson in West Germany requesting information on her whereabouts and what she did on the day of the homicide. On this date he received a collect call from Elke from her home in West Germany, and at that time she and her husband Karl were interviewed by phone.

There are three pages of notes in a supplemental dated Dec 31, 1985 done by Detective Pratt which make up the last notations of the year. The date of the investigation being handed over to Albright and Vincent for re-investigation is noted, as well as when a box of evidence from the case was transported to the Crime Lab in Bridgeport by him at the request of Detective Albright. He also notes that on September 20, 1985, James Paris of the First National Bank and trust in Big Rapids contacted him in reference to information that had been requested by Detectives Albright and Vincent.

Composite sketches were forwarded to the Plainwell PD at their request, and a Detective out of Lansing send information on a subject they had arrested to compare against similarities to Janette’s case. Neither lead ended up bearing fruit.

On December 2, 1985, a note was left for Detective Pratt from Trooper John Beam at the Reed City Post dated November 30, 1985 in reference to contact he had with Donald Knapp, husband of Patricia Knapp. According to Detective Pratt’s notes, “Mr. Knapp reported that ‘strange things are going on.” 

Pratt forwarded that information on to Detective Vincent.

The final notation made in 1985 is a list of four property items in manila envelopes with the notation, “The above items were obtained on January 4, 1984 from “Dan” and submitted to the Bridgeport Crime Lab on October 9, 1985. UD 14s submitted.”

... to be continued...