What if this blog ever BROKE a story....like now...
Well, it's not so much a story (though I'm sure to the woman involved it's a BAD story) as the unearthing of information in the John Norman Collins case from oh so long ago. Last week I let you in on some info the Ann Arbor Police Department was holding back and some that had leaked out (see the comments section in the post before this one) ever so slowly. However this information is unknown even to them, the Michigan State Police, the Ypsilanti Police and the Department of Public Safety at EMU. Now YOU get to read the world exclusive (where's my Matt Drudge flashing light when I need it?).
In the summer if 1967 John Norman Collins was stalking and chatting up women. Yes I know that's not news. But what if I told you he had a fixation on an African American woman, so much so that she fled without a word to anyone, back to her home in Detroit. Now you get it. John Norman Collins only KILLED petite, brunette females (Alice Kalom was a little bigger than the others but not by that much and Roxie Phillips in California was blonde). No, the summer of 1967 saw Mr. Collins forming an attraction to a black female, who was a co-lead singer in a band, with dreadlocks down the middle of her back and she was a broad shouldered tough as nails Detroit raised, street smart gal. Collins was in the habit of showing up to the bands shows (a minor local band, nobody of note) and waiting until the show was over for some direct face time with the female singer. One of the other band members specifically remembers Collins showing up to the shows and he spoke with him only in passing, it was the lead female singer he had his eye on. He could tell Collins made her a tad uneasy the more he'd show up. The pattern always repeated itself, he'd show up, wait until after the show and make sure he got a chance to be alone with the singer (whose name I'm not releasing currently). One day, she vanished. No trace, simply vanished. Her bandmates weren't told, nobody was told. She simply went missing. One of these bandmates (and the one who first told me this story) bumped into her about four or five years later at a concert and asked her what the hell had happened, why she'd up and vanished. "It was HIM" she told my wide eyed contact, "it was HIM". She relayed that indeed, Collins HAD been stalking her, and in her eyes making some very uncomfortable moves on her. She had simply vanished to be rid of him. She didn't tell anyone because she was VERY fearful of him finding her. She also mentioned that when she began seeing HIS face on TV a couple years later as a suspected serial killer, she REALLY freaked out.
This would have been either RIGHT after or RIGHT before the death of Mary Fleszar, Collins supposed first victim. My HUNCH would be right before as after murdering Fleszar he waited almost another year before killing again.
First off, I think the fact this woman was so street smart at the time may well have saved her life. I can't say for CERTAIN it did, but knowing what we know NOW it would appear it sure helped.
This also now begs the question maybe Collins sought different types of women for his debauchery, maybe he felt he needed smaller women who wouldn't or couldn't offer heavy resistance (this woman, trust me would have offered a lot of resistance) when he attacked them. Maybe this rejection or perceived rejection sent him over the edge the first time.
There you have it, make of it what you will but Collins WAS stalking an African American female in the summer of 1967,
In the summer if 1967 John Norman Collins was stalking and chatting up women. Yes I know that's not news. But what if I told you he had a fixation on an African American woman, so much so that she fled without a word to anyone, back to her home in Detroit. Now you get it. John Norman Collins only KILLED petite, brunette females (Alice Kalom was a little bigger than the others but not by that much and Roxie Phillips in California was blonde). No, the summer of 1967 saw Mr. Collins forming an attraction to a black female, who was a co-lead singer in a band, with dreadlocks down the middle of her back and she was a broad shouldered tough as nails Detroit raised, street smart gal. Collins was in the habit of showing up to the bands shows (a minor local band, nobody of note) and waiting until the show was over for some direct face time with the female singer. One of the other band members specifically remembers Collins showing up to the shows and he spoke with him only in passing, it was the lead female singer he had his eye on. He could tell Collins made her a tad uneasy the more he'd show up. The pattern always repeated itself, he'd show up, wait until after the show and make sure he got a chance to be alone with the singer (whose name I'm not releasing currently). One day, she vanished. No trace, simply vanished. Her bandmates weren't told, nobody was told. She simply went missing. One of these bandmates (and the one who first told me this story) bumped into her about four or five years later at a concert and asked her what the hell had happened, why she'd up and vanished. "It was HIM" she told my wide eyed contact, "it was HIM". She relayed that indeed, Collins HAD been stalking her, and in her eyes making some very uncomfortable moves on her. She had simply vanished to be rid of him. She didn't tell anyone because she was VERY fearful of him finding her. She also mentioned that when she began seeing HIS face on TV a couple years later as a suspected serial killer, she REALLY freaked out.
This would have been either RIGHT after or RIGHT before the death of Mary Fleszar, Collins supposed first victim. My HUNCH would be right before as after murdering Fleszar he waited almost another year before killing again.
First off, I think the fact this woman was so street smart at the time may well have saved her life. I can't say for CERTAIN it did, but knowing what we know NOW it would appear it sure helped.
This also now begs the question maybe Collins sought different types of women for his debauchery, maybe he felt he needed smaller women who wouldn't or couldn't offer heavy resistance (this woman, trust me would have offered a lot of resistance) when he attacked them. Maybe this rejection or perceived rejection sent him over the edge the first time.
There you have it, make of it what you will but Collins WAS stalking an African American female in the summer of 1967,
Labels: Alice Kalom, Ann Arbor, Eastern Michigan University, John Norman Collins, Ypsilanti Police
posted by Witch King of Angmar at 9:46 AM
5 Comments:
Very interesting information. I totally believe you, however I wonder how your source is. This is awesome information. Thanks for sharing.
claire--
Originally this story was related to me by someone who was there with her, her co-lead singer in the band. He saw JNC at the shows and briefly spoke with him. When I wanted more confirmation he introduced me to her, I asked a couple questions about it, she looked a million miles away, then looked down the nodded indeed everything he had relayed and I was now asking was true.
40 years later and she still feels creeped out
Wow, that amazing! Lucky you. :)
Lucky? Yeah, finding her was lucky but also fortuitous for profilers who now have something new to chew on.
Now, I wish I could break something on a case unsolved which is proving to be far more difficult ;)
I STILL say Dennis Rader (BTK) murdered Dorothy Slaughter in her home in Wichita in 2002
One problem with your overviw is that JNC "dated" women/girls and had sexual encounters with many others that he never hurt or ley on to any abnormal tendencies... other than being a horny 20 year old.
The fact that he was attracted to a ... gasp... black women is supposed to be news because what... she is black?
This would also suggest since he gave no reason for the woman to not only move but to "disappear" and since the "killings" hadn't even started or just had... that perhaps you're over looking some odd quirks of hers but none the less she didn't get killed by JNC
BTW: I think Rader killed Carol Mould too.
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