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.
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| 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!
