Delayed Justice

People call and e-mail with questions about cases I’ve never heard of. This time is was about Ronald “Stoney” Burke. My source said he had been murdered in the mid to late 1980s, and his murder had never been solved. He perhaps lived on Columbia in Muskegon Heights. What do you know?

Pastor Chris Meehan of Coit Community Church on Lafayette NE, in Grand Rapids was kind enough to invite Captain Jeffrey Hertel, Carolyn Priester, organizer of Conquerors (www.conquerors-sg.org), and me to come before members of his congregation and others who are interested in stemming the tide of violence.

In the time Captain Hertel has been on the job Grand Rapids has witnessed 168 homicides, most of them solved. But enough remain open that he wonders what it will take for people to open up to the police and share what they know. In the cases where they do, solutions are rapidly forthcoming.

Carolyn founded Counquerors after her son, Lee, was killed. She told the story of her son’s  July 28, 2007, murder. Like many parents of children who are gone violently and too soon, she related the burden she carries. She blames herself in part; why did she chose that neighborhood to raise her son? Her heartbreak has informed all of her life.

She makes a compelling case for someone to come forward, someone who will not be intimidated. And assuredly someone knows what happened, and could identify the killer who pulled the trigger.

Carolyn not only mourns for her son but mourns, too, for the mother of the person who killed her son. This killing has destroyed at least two families.

For my part, the most important element I could offer is that there is hope. There is hope that people can change, can be better, can live more fully into justice and mercy, both. And with humility.

Hope is never false…there is no such thing as false hope. By its very nature hope is true. Hopes can be disappointed, dashed, unrealized, but hope is never false.

And in the cases where somebody knows something…that would be nearly all murders…there is the real and present hope that justice can and will be served.

Captain Hertel was also to share the success this week in solving the 1989 murder of Helen Tracy. Here’s the latest Grand Rapids Press account by John Agar.

In the end, the suspect confessed. The murder of 88-year-old Helen Tracy in 1989 finally has a solution.

Kent County Metro Cold Case Team has arrested Michael Wayne Newkirk, 60, Wednesday, in Grand Rapids. Newkirk admitted to sexually assaulting and killing Tracy at her residence, 60 Sutton St. SW on May 21, 1989.

The Kent Metro Cold Case Team has been working on the case since 2009. You can read the mLive story by John Agar here.

We were  contacted this morning with the news that there is a new Facebook page established with the intention of developing leads and sharing news about Kathy Sue Wilcox, now missing for nearly 42 years. But hope remains. Kathy Sue Wilcox would be 57.

And it’s amazing all the sites out there that carry the message of those seeking information about Kathy Sue…the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Doe Network, Websleuths…and on. All of them–including us–with the intention of trying to help.

The case against Ryan Wyngarden in the 1987 murder of her sister, Gail, and her husband Rick Brink, has moved in fits and starts. It was initially to have been tried last  year, but was pushed in 2014. These moves are not unusual; it takes time to prepare both a prosecution and defense…and you want each one to be its very best. Here is the latest report that puts the trial starting in early March from Holland’s WHTC.

There is much to share not just about this case but others, too. For instance, a reader sent on information about the murder of Tamara Jo Radecki. That’s still officially unsolved. At this point my entire entry consists of newspaper clippings. It needs more investigation and a good, solid write up. I’ve reached out for more information and we’ll see what’s forthcoming.

There is so much more work to do and I have been dilatory in writing about what’s been going on in the background. That’s the way it’s had to have been given all that’s been occuring. More to come.