Delayed Justice

It will be 38 years to the day tomorrow that someone or, more likely, someones abducted Maryann Hicks (19) and Barbara Brott (18) from the Canopy Bar in Grand Rapids. The bar was a rough place. One of our sources said it was a hangout for those doing and selling drugs and there was likely other unsavory business. What were the young women doing there? Don’t know. But they met up with someone(s) who either convinced them to leave or who forced them to do so. One of our sources says there are people who remember BEING there then but not not much else. The two missing young women led to police work but all that led to nothing until the young women’s bodies were found July 25 in Muskegon County. Then it was a double homicide spread over two counties and at least two jurisdictions: Grand Rapids and Muskegon County. And for all the work on the cases they remain unsolved.

Maryann’s daughter Judy was only two when her mother was murdered. We sat down over coffee on Saturday. She was blessed with adoptive parents who were wonderful, she said. She and her younger brother ended up in the same family. Their older sister was adopted by parents who took her to Germany–where she still lives. Of course there is more, but the sum and substance is this: Judy hungers to know what happened. And she’s doing everything she can to learn just that. To that end she has compiled a case book. The best part is that Judy is not alone in her quest: she has two friends walking with her, two friends who are encouraging her. They may not succeed, but together they have a chance and they are going to make the most of it. This we know from Mae Teeters: Miracles happen every day. The secret is in recognizing them. And this we know from Russell Kirk: The future is unknowable.

And we’ve seen again and again that justice can be drawn out from chaos and loss. May it be so again. This time for Judy.

Two young woman, 18 and 19, go out for an evening March 10, 1972, in Grand Rapids. They go to the Canopy Bar…and they vanish. Their badly decomposed bodies are found by a dirt biker July 25 of the same year north of Muskegon.

And the case is still wide open. The stories of Barbara Brott and Mayann Hicks came to us in itheir own strange ways, as these cases do. And the contemporaneous news accounts bring up even MORE unremembered cases…at least unremembered by the general public: Barbara Larson murdered near Howard City in 1971, perhaps one of the Heritage Hill murderer’s other victims. And though unnamed, there were the stories of two unidentified young black women whose bodies were found in 1968. Those are just other stories that are floating up through time. And somebody knows something about every one of them.

Again, Karolee Gillman of the Grand Rapids History and Special Collections Department at the Main (formerly Ryerson) Branch of the Grand Rapids Public Library has come to our aid in sussing out these stories. I thank her publicly and profusely. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Karolee.

So, what was the Canopy Bar? Anybody out there know and remember?

We may be hearing more about these two cases.

The Michigan Supreme Court has decided that it’s going to take another look at one of its recent decisions, the Trentadue case. In that 2007 decision, the High Court, under the leadership of then-Chief Justice Cliff Taylor, ruled that a daughter could not bring suit against the employer of her mother’s murderer because a term of more than three years had elapsed. …Never mind that the daughter didn’t know who had killed her mother for more than a decade after it happened. This was a cold case that bears more than passing similarity to the murder of Janet Chandler. More than 27 years would pass before Jim and Glenna Chandler had any measure of criminal justice in the matter. If they had wanted to sue within the first three years they would not have known whom to sue. Only after the case was decided against the six now in prison for Janet’s murder could they have made that judgement. Their assessment was that Wackenhut, the company that had hired their daughter’s murderers (five out of the six held responsible by the law; there are The Others), bore some responsibility, especially given testimony from the witness stand that the guard company, a paramilitary organization, was the last stop for drunks and druggers (per supervisor Glenn L. Johnson). …That and the fact that the head of the detail, the man entrusted to hold the company line, was THE ONE who organized and hosted the murder party. Carl Paiva was THEIR guy.

The Trentadue decision became the law of that land with only Justices Betty Weaver and Marilyn Kelly writing their dissent. And the current court has only one personnel change…Justice Diane Hathaway in for former Justice Cliff Taylor. That’s still not a majority. That means that somebody is going to have to change his or her vote. And given that Justices Young and Corrigan have dissented from the measure to reconsider, I’m pretty sure it won’t be them. Nor do I think Republican Stephen Markman will go that way. That means it’s down to Justice Cavanagh. Although he didn’t write a dissent he DID vote against the verdict in 2007 and voted to reconsider it, too.

This should be interesting. But it represents the best chance for the Chandlers in their drive in a civil suit to hold a corporation responsible in some measure for their daughter’s murder. If Trentadue is overturned they might at least have their day in a civil court.

Mmmm-mmm-mmmmm. When something serendipitous happens I marvel. I marvel a lot, in fact, almost every day. But this would have been THE BIG SERENDIPITY. I had been having lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Margarita’s, in Holland. The food is Mexican and very, very good. And the people who run the restaurant are always so pleasant. The young woman who waited on us got to talking. She wanted to know if I was a cop. My question to her was “Do I look like a cop?” (I sure didn’t think so.) “Maybe,” she said. No, I explained, I’m just this old guy who makes films about unsolved murders. One thing led to another which led to a story on her part about an uncle and cousin who disappeared from the Thumb area of Michigan in 2002. My ears went up. When in 2002? What happened? The timing might have been right for Jack in The Box. Just maybe. Would she speak with Det. Bob Donker, the Ottawa County investigator who has the Jack case? Yes, she would.

So, I put them in touch. And for about five minutes we thought that just maybe we had Jack’s identity. Maybe. As Det. Donker put it: “That would have been the strangest way I’ve ever seen a case open up.” He allowed that he also had a little flutter.

But…no. The timing was close, but not close enough. Jack was discovered in Ottawa County May 2, 2002, beaten to death and burned beyond recognition, and these two men were last seen July 18, 2002. One of them even had contact with a Huron County Sheriff’s deputy that day. Dang, dang, dang.

So, instead of any closure in the matter, we have added two more disappearances (abductions, really) to We Remember, Ricardo Evangilio Garcia, 56, and Jose Fidencio Felix, 31.

We’ve just posted their cases and there will be more to come. Det. Richard Koehler of the Huron County Sheriff’s Department is sending on a poster that has their pictures. We anticipate we’ll come up with additional details, too.

And we know that somebody or some-bodies know(s) something all three of these cases, Jack, Ricardo, and Jose. Somebody ALWAYS knows something. And Detectives Donker and Koehler, two officers from two distant counties, really, really want to know what that is.

Serendipity? Oh, it’s great and all, but with a little intention, these cases could be solved. Maybe that falls under the category of miracle. That’s probably what it’s going to take. But miracles happen every day, too. That’s what my old friend Mae Teeters said. Mae graduated with a master’s degree at age 87 from Central Michigan University. That’s when she talked with me about miracles. And then she added this: “The secret is in recognizing them.” That was almost 27 years ago and I’ve lived by that ever since. I find she was correct.

Jim and Glenna Chandler have said that they want Wackenhut Corporation held accountable for what they see as its role in their daughter’s murder. And after U.S. District Court Judge Janet Neff dismissed their lawsuit last month they want to take the civil lawsuit against the corporation all the way, so their attorney, Rob Gaecke, has filled an appeal in the case with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District (in Cincinnati).

Here’s the WOOD TV report in broadcast form. And here’s the story from the station’s newsroom.

And here’s the coverage from The Grand Rapids Press.

At issue, of course, is the idea that had they known who was at fault in their daughter’s death the Chandlers would have filed suit in a timely fashion. Judge Neff ruled that the clock ticked out in 1983 for the 1979 murder. So, how do you file a lawsuit against persons unknown? The law is not always about logic.

Now they wait. Again.