Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them Gaesy Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 1: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 2: What drove the inconspicuous sociopath to become a ruthless killer
Speaker 2: During his nearly fifteen year reign of terror? Ronald Lloyd
Speaker 2: Bailey's braved obsession with sexual sadism held communities across Southeast
Speaker 2: Michigan in a shroud of fear from the early nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies to the mid nineteen eighties. The former patient at
Speaker 2: one of Michigan's foremost psychiatric hospitals abducted as many as
Speaker 2: fifteen teens and over time, became a sadistic serial killer.
Speaker 2: In this shocking, fast paced account, retired police officer and
Speaker 2: true crime author Rod Sadler examines law enforcement's dedicated efforts
Speaker 2: in connecting the dots to stop an unknown killer, and
Speaker 2: he poignantly chronicles the determination of the victim's families to
Speaker 2: triumph over tragedy. Sadler also examines Bailey's insanity defense that
Speaker 2: centered on the alleged abuse he endured at the hands
Speaker 2: of a psychiatrists. In doing so, the best selling author
Speaker 2: of Killing Women asks and answers the question what drove
Speaker 2: the inconspicuous sociopath to become a ruthless GUESI. The book
Speaker 2: that we're featuring this evening is Depraved Obsession, the gripping
Speaker 2: true story of law enforcements hunt for a sadistic serial killer,
Speaker 2: with my special guest, retired law enforcement officer and award
Speaker 2: winning author, Rod Sadler. Welcome back to the program, and
Speaker 2: thank you very much for this interview. Rod Sadler.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for having me again.
Speaker 4: This seems to be a regular occurrence every couple of
Speaker 4: years and I always enjoy it.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Dan, I do too as well. Thank you so much,
Speaker 2: and congratulations on your latest Depraved Obsession.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 4: May sixth the launch, and I think I'm almost positive
Speaker 4: that the readers will find it is by far my
Speaker 4: best work yet.
Speaker 3: I truly believe.
Speaker 2: That, yes, I will concur Let's talk about how you
Speaker 2: came to this story. You are a former law enforcement
Speaker 2: police officer. Tell us how you came to be involved
Speaker 2: in this story.
Speaker 4: Well, back in nineteen eighty five, I worked briefly, and
Speaker 4: I do mean very briefly in the Detroit area as
Speaker 4: a police officer. I can remember driving down US twenty three,
Speaker 4: it's a state highway here in the Brighton area, which
Speaker 4: is down toward the Detroit area, and I can remember
Speaker 4: seeing the news reports of this young teenage boy who
Speaker 4: had been kidnapped and his body hadn't even been found yet.
Speaker 4: And I can remember driving down US twenty three and
Speaker 4: glancing over and seeing the green Oak Township Police Department.
Speaker 4: They were the original investigating agency in this kidnapping, and realizing, oh,
Speaker 4: that's where this young boy was kidnapped from, was green
Speaker 4: Oak Township, and always remembered that case. And then as
Speaker 4: I was searching for new material for a new book,
Speaker 4: a friend of mine that I've known for, oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: probably thirty years told me that he was the first
Speaker 4: officer contacted by a witness in that case, and he
Speaker 4: and another friend of mine were the very first two
Speaker 4: officers involved in the kidnapping of Sean Moore.
Speaker 3: And so that's how.
Speaker 4: He said, would you like to write the book about it,
Speaker 4: and I said, Oh, I'd be absolutely thrilled to write
Speaker 4: that book. Yeah, And so that's how it all started.
Speaker 2: You're right that the abduction and murder of Shawn Moore
Speaker 2: became a defining moment for Brighton, Michigan, and for Livingston County,
Speaker 2: and the entire community lost its innocence at that time.
Speaker 2: And you say it was also a defining moment for
Speaker 2: anyone directly involved in the investigation.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 4: You have to understand in the mid eighties, it really
Speaker 4: was a time when a lot of people didn't lock
Speaker 4: their doors, a lot of people had a lot of
Speaker 4: trust in that area. Brighton was a working class community,
Speaker 4: a suburb really. I don't know as they would admit
Speaker 4: it today, but really it was kind of a suburb
Speaker 4: of the Detroit area, and a lot of people commuted
Speaker 4: to Detroit and the surrounding suburbs to work from Brighton,
Speaker 4: and Brighton was just a quaint little community. And to
Speaker 4: have something like that happen on a Labor Day weekend
Speaker 4: in the middle of the day in nineteen eighty five
Speaker 4: absolutely took the innocence of Brighton, Michigan and Livingston County
Speaker 4: away and anybody that you talked to, anyone that I interviewed.
Speaker 3: For the book would agree with that.
Speaker 4: It was as if the whole county lost its innocence
Speaker 4: because of this kidnapping.
Speaker 2: You take the reader to February nineteen seventy six and
Speaker 2: right that across southeast Michigan and beyond, people were gripped
Speaker 2: in fear with the seemingly random murders of children in
Speaker 2: and around Oakland County that spanned the next fourteen months.
Speaker 2: And you say the murders began in January, Tell us
Speaker 2: about what happens in Macombe County and Cynthia Cadou.
Speaker 4: There was a series of children who were murdered, Some
Speaker 4: were teenagers, mid teenagers.
Speaker 3: Cynthia Caddou was one of them.
Speaker 4: Off the top of my head, I don't recall the
Speaker 4: circumstances around her murder, but there was two or three
Speaker 4: of them that occurred, along with four that were attributed
Speaker 4: to at least one group or group of killers who
Speaker 4: became known as the Oakland County child killings. And Cynthia
Speaker 4: Kudo and there were their names escaped me off the
Speaker 4: top of my head. But there were two others that
Speaker 4: they thought were related to the Oaklan County child killings,
Speaker 4: and it turned out eventually they were able to show
Speaker 4: that they were not involved or a part of those,
Speaker 4: So now the police were left with four other murders
Speaker 4: of children. The murders of Mark Stebbens, Jill Robinson, Christine Mahellick,
Speaker 4: and Timothy King were the victims of the Oakland County
Speaker 4: child killings, and the other three that I do reference
Speaker 4: at the beginning of the book turns out they were
Speaker 4: not a part of those.
Speaker 2: We spoke earlier. Can you explain this Oakland County child
Speaker 2: killings and why this book is not specifically about that,
Speaker 2: even though it's the title of this What.
Speaker 4: Happened was in February of nineteen seventy six, a young
Speaker 4: boy named Mark Stebbins came up missing.
Speaker 3: His body was found.
Speaker 4: In a parking lot shortly a couple days after he
Speaker 4: was kidnapped. After that, a young girl by the name
Speaker 4: of Joe Robinson, she was twelve. She came up missing
Speaker 4: in December of nineteen seventy six. And then there was
Speaker 4: another girl who came up missing, Christine Mahellick. She was
Speaker 4: ten years old. She came up missing in January of
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy seven, and Timothy King, who was eleven at
Speaker 4: the time, came up missing in March of nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 4: When these kids' bodies were found, they were as if
Speaker 4: they had been taken care of. They had been held,
Speaker 4: obviously for several days before they were murdered, and the
Speaker 4: police formed a task force in order to find the
Speaker 4: Oaklan County child killings or killer, and to this day
Speaker 4: he has not been caught.
Speaker 3: I do reference.
Speaker 4: These murders because these were at a time when Ron Bailey,
Speaker 4: the killer that I write about, was a teenager, and
Speaker 4: obviously he had a propensity for young children, and there
Speaker 4: was some suggestion or some thought that he might be
Speaker 4: involved at least in some way in these killings. And
Speaker 4: so the book really is not about the Oaklan County childkillings.
Speaker 4: It's about Ron Bailey and the two young boys that
Speaker 4: he was convicted of killing in nineteen eight eighty four,
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2: Let's get to this. You call it the beginning. Lavonia Township,
Speaker 2: a Detroit suburb over one hundred thousand population, and Ron
Speaker 2: Bailey's father, Alfred Bailey. You say Ron was born in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine. Tell us about Alfred Bailey, his wife
Speaker 2: and Ron growing up well.
Speaker 4: Alfred Bailey was, by all accounts, was a workaholic, even
Speaker 4: by his own admissions. And Ron Bailey had a brother
Speaker 4: also and a sister, and Alfred Bailey was seldom at home.
Speaker 4: He worked for a computer technology company GM was just
Speaker 4: taking them on board, so he was busy, it seemed
Speaker 4: like all the time. He was a coach, though, and
Speaker 4: he was a highly respected like little league coach in
Speaker 4: the area, so there was some time spent with his children,
Speaker 4: but for the most part, he was a workaholic. At
Speaker 4: that time, he saw some promise in Ron as a
Speaker 4: young baseball player, but Ron Bailey had absolutely no interest
Speaker 4: in that at all, and so Ron Bailey would often
Speaker 4: get on his bike and take off and be gone
Speaker 4: all day long and might not even come home for dinner,
Speaker 4: might not even show up until late in the evening,
Speaker 4: and so he was basically out on his own. His
Speaker 4: mother tried to discipline him when the need arose, but
Speaker 4: really it came down to Alfred Bailey disciplining him when
Speaker 4: he would get home after working for a twelve hour day.
Speaker 2: You're right about the first one of the first incidents
Speaker 2: known no doubt Ron was fourteen years old and he
Speaker 2: put a knife at the throat of a fifteen year
Speaker 2: old and raped him. And he had got him from
Speaker 2: a shopping center in Dearborn Heights. He tied his hands
Speaker 2: behind his back and molested him before letting him go,
Speaker 2: and he demanded his phone number. What happens as a
Speaker 2: result of this, and it's interesting you talk about the
Speaker 2: reaction when he goes to the police with his parents
Speaker 2: and then what he does the next day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's interviewed by the police after this happens, and
Speaker 4: he denies any part in that, completely denies it. And
Speaker 4: he lived near the Lavonia Police department and it was
Speaker 4: short like within a day. He showed back up at
Speaker 4: the Livonia Police Department by himself, and he went in
Speaker 4: and he confessed to what he'd been accused of, told
Speaker 4: him all the details, and basically he was referred because
Speaker 4: he was a juvenile at that time, he was referred
Speaker 4: to the juvenile court system and ended up receive in probation.
Speaker 4: But this was the beginning of a cycle with him,
Speaker 4: and it went on and on and on until he
Speaker 4: was eventually prosecuted for another kidnapping. And basically he was
Speaker 4: charged with a kidnapping attempted murder of another teenage boy.
Speaker 4: And when he went through the court system for those
Speaker 4: two felony charges, the judge had a very difficult decision,
Speaker 4: and the decision was should he send Ron Bailey, who
Speaker 4: was now sixteen years old, into the prison system or
Speaker 4: should he give him probation and have him receive psychiatric help.
Speaker 4: And the judge chose to refer him for psychiatric help
Speaker 4: and put him on five years probation.
Speaker 2: As a result, you said that he goes to the
Speaker 2: Hawthorne Center, the psychiatric for some term of treatment. Tell
Speaker 2: us what happens at that Hawthorne Center and tell us
Speaker 2: about the Hawthorne Center itself.
Speaker 4: Well, the Hawthorne Center was a psychiatric hospital for youth
Speaker 4: adults were in a nearby regional psychiatric hospital in Northville,
Speaker 4: and on the same grounds was the Hawthorn Center, which
Speaker 4: was for young adults and children, and that's where Ron
Speaker 4: Bailey went first. It was at the Hawthorn Center when
Speaker 4: Ron Bailey was first introduced to his new psychiatrist, a
Speaker 4: doctor by the name of Jose Tombo, and.
Speaker 3: Tombo took a liking to.
Speaker 4: Ron Bailey because of his sexuality.
Speaker 3: And although.
Speaker 4: Later there were accusations that doctor Tombo had forced Ron
Speaker 4: Bailey into some sort of a sexual relationship, doctor Tombo
Speaker 4: did not actually do that until Ron Bailey was moved
Speaker 4: from the Hawthorn Center over to the Northfield Regional Psychiatric
Speaker 4: Hospital as an adult, and that's when the alleged advances
Speaker 4: from doctor Tombo began.
Speaker 2: Another important character he meets that the Hawthorne Center Ron
Speaker 2: Bailey is a person named Deb Chesney, and she'll be
Speaker 2: important in his story a little bit later.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Deb Chesney was a friend of Ron. They were
Speaker 4: about the same age, and they were both at the
Speaker 4: Hawthorne Center together and basically Ron was struggling with his sexuality.
Speaker 4: He didn't know if he was gay or if he
Speaker 4: was a heterosexual. And so he and Deb became very
Speaker 4: good friends and eventually dated one another for a short
Speaker 4: period of time.
Speaker 2: What was the diagnosis the initial diagnosis of Ron Bailey
Speaker 2: at that Hawthorn Center.
Speaker 4: That's a great question. I don't know specifically what the
Speaker 4: diagnosis was. There were arguments in court that he suffered
Speaker 4: from schizophrenia and a split personality, but he eventually was
Speaker 4: able to leave both the Hawthorn Center and the Northville
Speaker 4: Regional Psychiatric Hospital. While he was at Northville, he was
Speaker 4: allowed to leave there randomly, almost to go work at
Speaker 4: a job, to go visit his family on the weekends,
Speaker 4: things like that. That was not common knowledge to the
Speaker 4: police investigators at the time, but doctor Tombo felt that
Speaker 4: Ron Bailey was well enough to be able to go
Speaker 4: to leave the hospital grounds, to go to work, and
Speaker 4: to go visit his family. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 4: he what's the term I'm looking for?
Speaker 3: He was an advocate for Ron in being able to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 4: One of the diagnosis for Ron was that he suffered
Speaker 4: from pedophilia.
Speaker 3: He was a pedophile.
Speaker 2: Sure, let's use this as an opportunity to stop to
Speaker 2: hear these messages you also talk about have to be
Speaker 2: a contributor to all of this. He moves in with
Speaker 2: a person named George Soper, and George Soper is a
Speaker 2: manager of a business, and so he actually is able
Speaker 2: to have Ron Bailey employed. Well, tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit about this George Soper.
Speaker 4: George Soper was he was a neighbor to Ron at
Speaker 4: one point and when Ron, George Soper was going to
Speaker 4: move to Florida. Is how that all transpired? And Ron
Speaker 4: Bailey wanted to move to Florida too. Ron Bailey had
Speaker 4: been accused in several incidents of kidnapping young boys over
Speaker 4: the years, and he said he told his dad that
Speaker 4: he wanted to get a new start and that his neighbor,
Speaker 4: George Soper, was moving to Florida and he could move
Speaker 4: to Florida, start a whole new life and move in
Speaker 4: with George Soper down there. And so Ron Bailey made
Speaker 4: arrangements with his probation officer here in Michigan to continue
Speaker 4: his probation in Florida. He still had another year or
Speaker 4: two on probation, and it was as simple as as
Speaker 4: going down there, getting set up with a probation officer
Speaker 4: down there so they could supervise his activities. And so
Speaker 4: Ron Bailey went down to Florida with George Soper, moved
Speaker 4: into a trailer park south of Okala, actually in Bellevue, Florida.
Speaker 4: And he initially had a job as a i think
Speaker 4: installing alarms, and he lost that job. And George Soper
Speaker 4: was working for a tire dealership, was manager there and
Speaker 4: got Ron Bailey a job there delivering tires.
Speaker 2: And what was his criminal activity in Florida.
Speaker 4: His criminal activity in Florida was basically a new hunting
Speaker 4: ground for him. He began doing exactly what he was
Speaker 4: doing in Michigan and eventually admitted that that he couldn't
Speaker 4: help himself. He would pick up young boy, ply him
Speaker 4: with alcohol, molest them, and release them. There is some
Speaker 4: suspicion that maybe there is a few unsolved murders down
Speaker 4: there that he could be responsible for, and.
Speaker 2: So the police are looking for him. There's composite drawings
Speaker 2: from these assaults where these people are let go, but
Speaker 2: they report to police. But then you take us to
Speaker 2: Marie Edenstrom and her son Kenny Myers, tell us about
Speaker 2: the circumstances that they are in the area. They just
Speaker 2: moved from Warren a couple of weeks before.
Speaker 4: They did back back in Michigan. Ron Bailey first got
Speaker 4: into trouble in Florida for contributing to the delinquency of minors,
Speaker 4: and so he fled Florida when he learned that there
Speaker 4: was likely going to be charges filed against him. There
Speaker 4: actually were charges filed against him, and he fled Florida.
Speaker 4: Came back to Michigan in about nineteen eighty three, and
Speaker 4: Marie Edenstrom lived in Ferndale, Michigan, and she lived with
Speaker 4: her husband and her son, Kenny Myers. And Kenny Myers
Speaker 4: was I believe he was fourteen years old, and Kenny
Speaker 4: Myers wanted to go out and find.
Speaker 3: A job as a young boy.
Speaker 4: And he told his mother one night, he said, I'm
Speaker 4: going to go out and I'm going to come back
Speaker 4: home later and I'll have a job. He was going
Speaker 4: to go look at the party stores along Woodward Avenue
Speaker 4: nine mile area down in the Detroit area near Ferndale.
Speaker 4: And so he left on his bike at about seven
Speaker 4: o'clock at night, and it was the last time Missus
Speaker 4: Edenstrom ever saw him. He never came back that night.
Speaker 4: They went out looking for him. Sadly, they couldn't find him,
Speaker 4: so they went and reported him missing to the Ferndale police.
Speaker 3: This was in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 4: It was the I believe it was the following day
Speaker 4: when his body was discovered about twenty miles away from
Speaker 4: Ferndale in a place called Heinz Park, down in a
Speaker 4: Detroit suburb of Westland. Kenny had been strangled with a
Speaker 4: belt and sexually assaulted.
Speaker 2: Very interesting too, you say that there was a woman
Speaker 2: very crucial to this story, Dolly May Banks. She sees
Speaker 2: something a couple of days before, but then once this
Speaker 2: becomes in the media and this news story reported, she
Speaker 2: remembers what she saw and notifies police. Tell us about
Speaker 2: Dolly May Banks and what she saw and what she reported.
Speaker 4: Well, Dowley was just a woman who lived along I
Speaker 4: think it was nine mile Road.
Speaker 3: She was sitting on her porch or she was.
Speaker 4: She liked to watch traffic through her front window. And
Speaker 4: she was sitting in her living room looking at traffic
Speaker 4: going by, and she noticed a young boy on a
Speaker 4: bicycle riding along, riding along the street on the opposite side,
Speaker 4: and she noticed the brown station wagon pull up and stop.
Speaker 4: And then the driver that station wagon put it in
Speaker 4: reverse and backed across a lane of traffic into a
Speaker 4: parking lot and blocked the young teenage boy from advancing,
Speaker 4: if you will, and he jumped out and he grabbed
Speaker 4: the boy, dragged him off his bike, put him in
Speaker 4: the station wagon, and fled with him. Missus Banks, who's
Speaker 4: watching this, thinks at first, oh my gosh, did I
Speaker 4: just witness kidnapping? And then she convinced herself that it
Speaker 4: was probably just a father disciplining his son. And it
Speaker 4: was later that night or the next day when she
Speaker 4: saw the news reports of Kenny Meyer's missing and she realized,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, that's what I saw. She had witnessed
Speaker 4: the kidnapping.
Speaker 2: Ron Bailey realizes that maybe somebody spotted his station wagon.
Speaker 2: And so what does he do as a result regarding
Speaker 2: that station wagon.
Speaker 4: Well, he sold it. About it I think it was
Speaker 4: six or seven months later he sold that station wagon. Well,
Speaker 4: first he drove it back and forth to work every day,
Speaker 4: and after the news of Kenny Meyer's abduction hit the media,
Speaker 4: he parked that station wagon in the weeds at his
Speaker 4: employer and he left it there and he would get
Speaker 4: friends to pick him up and take him to work
Speaker 4: every day, or he'd walk to work or hitchhike because
Speaker 4: he was afraid that someone would eventually spot that station
Speaker 4: wagon and make the connection to Kenny Myers abduction. And
Speaker 4: so finally his boss said, you know, get it off
Speaker 4: our property. His boss and his coworkers had never made
Speaker 4: the connection to the Kenny Myers abduction. So Bailey took
Speaker 4: it off the property there and he ended up selling
Speaker 4: it and he bought a nineteen eighty five Jeep Renegade,
Speaker 4: brand new, right off the lot, and that was his
Speaker 4: new vehicle that he had switched to.
Speaker 2: You're right that he was close with his parents, or
Speaker 2: at least his parents thought they were close with Ron Bailey,
Speaker 2: but he surprises them when he shows up in Michigan
Speaker 2: because they thought he was still in Florida.
Speaker 4: He yeah, As a matter of fact, in the Kenny
Speaker 4: Myers abduction, they thought the police thought, well, Ron Bailey
Speaker 4: would be a great suspect, except he's in Florida, right,
Speaker 4: So they never even considered him as a suspect, and
Speaker 4: so they thought he was in Florida. When Ron Bailey
Speaker 4: moved back to Michigan, his parents. He never even went
Speaker 4: and saw his parents until Christmas of nineteen eighty three
Speaker 4: or nineteen eighty four, and it was at that time
Speaker 4: they realized, oh, oh my gosh, he's back here. So yeah,
Speaker 4: nobody knew that Ron Bailey had come back to Michigan.
Speaker 2: You say that it's some kind of odd behavior. He
Speaker 2: decided to buy a pleasure boat through financing, and also
Speaker 2: that he surprised relatives like his cousin and said that
Speaker 2: he was just heading up north and he'd brought some
Speaker 2: guns along for some target practice, and one of these
Speaker 2: people that asked to see the guns. It was a
Speaker 2: twenty two rifle and a twelve gage shotgun. And he
Speaker 2: also had a couple of gym bags in a wooden box,
Speaker 2: and that relative asked him what was in the box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ammunition was in the box.
Speaker 4: And this was in This was now nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 4: this would have been Labor Day weekend. Ron Bailey shows
Speaker 4: up in a small town called Fowlerville, actually outside Fowlerville, Michigan,
Speaker 4: where his cousins lived, and just on a whim, he
Speaker 4: pulls in to visit them and he says, yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: going up north for the weekend. Tries to see if
Speaker 4: his teenage cousin can go, but the dad says no
Speaker 4: because he's been he's got some other stuff to do.
Speaker 4: And so Ron Bailey he shows off his gun and
Speaker 4: the guns that he's got, and he shows off the
Speaker 4: new jeep and basically he's only there for a couple hours.
Speaker 4: He drinks a couple of beers with his cousin and
Speaker 4: he leaves. At that point, those people were instrumental witnesses
Speaker 4: in his trial to show that he was in the
Speaker 4: area Fowlerville is very near within seven or eight miles
Speaker 4: of Brighton, Michigan, and that's where Sean Moore was kidnapped,
Speaker 4: and so they were crucial witnesses in Ron Bailey's trial
Speaker 4: to show Hey, he was in the area at the
Speaker 4: time that Sean Moore was kidnapped in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2: Let us has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: Now you write about Sean Moore, he lived with his parents,
Speaker 2: Bruce and Sharon, and he had an older brother named Scott,
Speaker 2: and his older sister had married and had moved away,
Speaker 2: and a very close family. And he at about three pm,
Speaker 2: Sean wanted to go to the store and got permission
Speaker 2: to go get a soda at the store. Tell us
Speaker 2: what happens right afterwards.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Sean had been mowing the lawn with his dad
Speaker 4: in a subdivision south of Brighton along Whitmore Lake Road,
Speaker 4: and it's also referred to as Old US twenty three.
Speaker 4: Before the highway was built, it was the state highway,
Speaker 4: so they called it Old US twenty three. So it
Speaker 4: was a hot day, Sean wanted to go get a
Speaker 4: soda pop, so he asked his dad if he could
Speaker 4: ride his bike up to the pump and pump and pantry,
Speaker 4: I believe.
Speaker 3: It was called.
Speaker 4: And his dad said, yeah, but be back by, you know,
Speaker 4: don't be long because we're all going to have dinner.
Speaker 3: Then go see a movie tonight.
Speaker 4: And so Sean left on his bike and he rode
Speaker 4: up to the pump and pantry and it was there
Speaker 4: where Ron Bailey first noticed Sean Moore and ended up
Speaker 4: kidnapping him.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 2: You write about some witnesses important ones to this story.
Speaker 2: Sherry Huey driving to her sisters in Brighton. What does
Speaker 2: she see later becoming again a very valuable witness.
Speaker 4: Well, she's driving northbound on Whitmore Lake Road at about
Speaker 4: the time Sean Moore has left the pump and pantry.
Speaker 4: And what she sees is she notices a jeep parked
Speaker 4: alongside the road, and she knows that it's a jeep
Speaker 4: because her boyfriend has one that's identical to it. And
Speaker 4: she sees a man with his arm around. Well, first
Speaker 4: she sees Sean Moore riding southbound, but he's looking over
Speaker 4: his shoulder and he's got a worried.
Speaker 3: Look on his face, and.
Speaker 4: He's riding so slow that his handlebars are wobbling as
Speaker 4: he's looking over his shoulder, and that that was a
Speaker 4: key piece of evidence because the first witness that reported
Speaker 4: Shawn Moore as kidnapping had been traveling southbound on US
Speaker 4: twenty three and had noticed a vehicle on Whitmore Lake Road,
Speaker 4: pulled off to the side of the road and saw
Speaker 4: a young man with his arm around a teenage boy.
Speaker 4: The teenage boy was crying and the man was forcing
Speaker 4: him toward the g and this man, this witness, was
Speaker 4: on his way to the University of Michigan Hospital because
Speaker 4: his daughter was going to undergo emergency surgery. But when
Speaker 4: he saw that on the side of Whitmore Lake Road,
Speaker 4: he instantly thought something's wrong and I've got to get
Speaker 4: back there and try to get a license plate number
Speaker 4: off that vehicle. But by the time he was able
Speaker 4: to get off the highway and circle.
Speaker 3: Back, the vehicle gone.
Speaker 4: In his own mind, because he didn't pay attention to
Speaker 4: the vehicle he worked for GM, he thought the vehicle
Speaker 4: was a GMC pickup and that's what he reported to
Speaker 4: the police. So for the first two days of the investigation,
Speaker 4: until Sherry Hughey came forward, the police were looking for
Speaker 4: the wrong vehicle.
Speaker 3: They were looking for a GMC pickup truck and not
Speaker 3: a jeep. Renegade.
Speaker 2: You introduced now the crucial members of the law enforcement
Speaker 2: that are involved in this case. Dave Austrom and Detective
Speaker 2: Ed Moore. Tell us a little bit about these gentlemen.
Speaker 4: Dave Moore, I'm sorry, Dave Moore. Dave Ostrom worked for
Speaker 4: the Green Oak Township Police Department and he'd been there
Speaker 4: about five years. Very not a big crime rate there.
Speaker 4: I'm pretty middle class township. He enjoyed his work, but
Speaker 4: he wanted to go on to bigger and better things
Speaker 4: in law enforcement. And so it was towards the end
Speaker 4: of his shift and he was on his way back
Speaker 4: to the Green Oak Township Police Department. He had like
Speaker 4: a half hour left in his shift. And he pulls
Speaker 4: up to the intersection where the pump and pantry is,
Speaker 4: and on the other side of the road is this
Speaker 4: first witness and he's flashing his lights at Officer Ostrom,
Speaker 4: and so Officer Ostrom pulls up next to him, and
Speaker 4: the guy sitting the witness says, hey, I think I
Speaker 4: just saw a teenager getting abducted, and so Dave Ostrom
Speaker 4: and him start conversing and he Dave has taken notes
Speaker 4: as quick as he can, and he gets on the
Speaker 4: radio and calls it in. Ed Moore, who worked for
Speaker 4: the Livingston County Sheriff Department, is about a mile away.
Speaker 4: He's on marine duty for the holiday weekend, but his
Speaker 4: normal duty is as a detective, and so he realizes
Speaker 4: he's close.
Speaker 3: He radioes to oast him and says, Hey, have you
Speaker 3: been to the scene yet. Dave says no.
Speaker 4: He says, I'm trying to get some more information here.
Speaker 4: So ed Moore says, I'll head down to the scene
Speaker 4: because he's just about a mile away. He gets down
Speaker 4: there and he sees Sean Moore's ten speed bicycle laying
Speaker 4: on the side of the road.
Speaker 2: There is a task force organized soon and the cooperation
Speaker 2: from the Michigan State Police and the FBI, including local
Speaker 2: police department. Tell us about this task force that is
Speaker 2: formed and their progress.
Speaker 4: The task force was formed within a day or two
Speaker 4: after Sean's kidnapping, and it literally it was an unheard
Speaker 4: of event, if you will, And by that I mean
Speaker 4: that in the mid eighties, police agencies, not all of them,
Speaker 4: but some police agencies, and I think This is true
Speaker 4: for the entire country, but police agencies had a tendency
Speaker 4: to hold information very close. They wanted the credit for
Speaker 4: a big investigation, and that was the case with seal
Speaker 4: killer John Norman Collins in the sixties and early seventies
Speaker 4: here in Michigan. But the state police would hold their
Speaker 4: information close, and so would the smaller agencies. Unheard of
Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty five was the fact that the local police,
Speaker 4: the Greenolk Township Police, the Livingston County Sheriff's Department, the
Speaker 4: Brighton Police Department, the Michigan State Police, and the FBI
Speaker 4: all formed.
Speaker 3: This task force.
Speaker 4: The commander of the task force got up Roger Battel
Speaker 4: the very first day, room packed full of investigators, and
Speaker 4: he said, I don't care who you are, I don't
Speaker 4: care who you work for. I don't care how much
Speaker 4: time you have in If you have an idea, I
Speaker 4: want to hear it. And that cohesiveness really was the
Speaker 4: catalyst to get this investigation going. It really paid off,
Speaker 4: and it was something that was virtually unheard of before
Speaker 4: that everybody worked together. That's an important point of my
Speaker 4: book is it really is law enforcement coming together, local, state,
Speaker 4: and federal agencies to try to catch a killer.
Speaker 2: And they did, You're right then, and I think we
Speaker 2: should make this distinction. And originally law enforcement thought that
Speaker 2: this was regarded as a kidnapping because there was some
Speaker 2: harassing calls at the Moore home for Sharon Moore, so
Speaker 2: they treated it as a kidnapping in that possible ransom
Speaker 2: or any kind of conditions or especially evidenced by the
Speaker 2: contact of the family. However, you write that this WE
Speaker 2: tip program was set up and calls were coming in
Speaker 2: and there was an anonymous tipster with some very very
Speaker 2: valuable information imparted.
Speaker 4: There was an anonymous tipster. It turned out that the
Speaker 4: anonymous tipster was one of Ron Bailey's co workers here
Speaker 4: in Michigan, and by that time he had started working
Speaker 4: for Ara Coffee Services. He would service vending machines around
Speaker 4: the Detroit area, and one of his co workers called
Speaker 4: the WEI tip line and said, hey, you might want
Speaker 4: to check out Ron Bailey, and he gave some details
Speaker 4: about Ron's past and the fact that Ron Bailey drove
Speaker 4: a nineteen eighty five cheap renegade. About that same time,
Speaker 4: an officer from the Lavonia Police Department called the Task
Speaker 4: Force headquarters and said he called him at like eleven
Speaker 4: o'clock at night and he said, hey, you might want
Speaker 4: to look at this guy named Ron Bailey. Ron Bailey
Speaker 4: has a serious history of kidnapping young boys and molesting
Speaker 4: them off their bikes, and he's a really good I
Speaker 4: think he's a really good suspect and you should take
Speaker 4: a look at him.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: Jeff Lopez, who was an special agent with the FBI,
Speaker 4: was working on a task force. He took that call
Speaker 4: from the Livonia officer and he said, we'll be right out.
Speaker 4: So they went out that night tried to find Ron Bailey,
Speaker 4: and they went to his home and his parents said, no,
Speaker 4: he's not here right now. He's over at a friend's house.
Speaker 4: And so they went over to that friend's house and
Speaker 4: sure enough, Ron Bailey's jeep was in the driveway and
Speaker 4: they waited for him to leave, and they pulled a
Speaker 4: traffic stop on him and took him into custody and
Speaker 4: took him back to the Lavogna Police department for an interview.
Speaker 4: And they had witnesses come in that night to try
Speaker 4: to identify Ron Bailey as the kidnapper of Sean Moore,
Speaker 4: and none of them could pick him out because they
Speaker 4: had gone by so fast and didn't get a really
Speaker 4: good look at his face when Shawn was kidnapped, and
Speaker 4: so they had to release Ron Bailey that night. They
Speaker 4: had to release him. Sean Moore was still missing, and
Speaker 4: when they released him, they set up a surveillance on him,
Speaker 4: unbeknownst to him, so they were tailing him.
Speaker 3: Ron Bailey was taken to.
Speaker 4: Detroit Metro Airport and he immediately caught a flight to
Speaker 4: Florida and fled the state.
Speaker 2: You're right though, Before that that, Jess Lopez had caught
Speaker 2: Bailey in a profound lie. He was talking about his
Speaker 2: alibi and he noted someone named Mike Slaven.
Speaker 3: He did.
Speaker 4: He said that Ron Bailey had told Lopez. Well, Ron
Speaker 4: Bailey was interviewed twice. He'd been interviewed in the afternoon
Speaker 4: that same day by the state police because of the
Speaker 4: wee tip, and he told him, Hey, I was up
Speaker 4: in I think it was Castill Keystill, Michigan, which is
Speaker 4: up in.
Speaker 3: The Thumb area.
Speaker 4: He says, I was up there with Mike Slave and
Speaker 4: my friend and we were fishing all weekend. So that's
Speaker 4: my story and I'm sticking to it. So when Jess
Speaker 4: Lopez interviewed him, he said the same thing. He said, Well,
Speaker 4: he says, I was up in case with my buddy
Speaker 4: Mike Slaven and we were fishing all weekend. Well, unbeknownst
Speaker 4: to Ron Bailey, when he left Mike Slaven's house that night,
Speaker 4: when they pulled him over and took him in for questioning,
Speaker 4: they also took Mike Slavean in for questioning, and Mike
Speaker 4: Slaven said he was never with me right, never ever
Speaker 4: that weekend, And so they'd caught Ron Bailey in a
Speaker 4: huge lie. Their only problem was they knew he was lying.
Speaker 4: They didn't know where Sean Moore's body was. What they
Speaker 4: did was during the interview with Ron Bailey, they went
Speaker 4: through his wallet and in his wallet there was a
Speaker 4: towing receipt from a record company. And so when Ron
Speaker 4: Bailey fled the state, Jess Lopez went to the record
Speaker 4: company and he said, you know what was this tobill for?
Speaker 4: And they said, oh, guy in a jeep got his
Speaker 4: jeep stuck and he was with his girlfriend. She's one
Speaker 4: of the Chesney girls. The record driver knew her. So
Speaker 4: Jess Lopez went down river in Detroit and interviewed Deb
Speaker 4: Chesney and Deb Chesney said, oh, yeah, we got stuck
Speaker 4: and a record came and pulled us out. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: so Jess Lopez asked him, He said, where was Ron Bailey?
Speaker 4: You know, where was your boyfriend on Labor Day weekend?
Speaker 3: Oh, well, he went up to.
Speaker 4: Our family cabin. He told me he was going up
Speaker 4: to our family cabin. And Gladwin. Well, Gladwin, Michigan is
Speaker 4: about one hundred miles north of Saginaw, Michigan. It's quite
Speaker 4: a ways. It's in the middle of northern Michigan. And
Speaker 4: it was at that point when Jess Lopez knew that's
Speaker 4: where Sean Moore's body was.
Speaker 2: You say, take us to this very vivid scene where
Speaker 2: they noticed the troopers bows and Margosian noticed buzzards and
Speaker 2: you right, soon Shawn's body was found. What do they
Speaker 2: find in terms of forensic evidence from that Shawn's body
Speaker 2: being found.
Speaker 4: Well, they organized a search up there. Two troopers from
Speaker 4: the Pontiac area were assigned a specific area search and
Speaker 4: they went down the road. As soon as they got
Speaker 4: out of their car, they noticed some tracks back into
Speaker 4: a very heavily wooded area. It's a national forest, so
Speaker 4: above there was a couple bird circlings. The younger troopers
Speaker 4: said what are those? And the experienced troopers said, those
Speaker 4: are buzzards And as they walked back into the woods.
Speaker 4: They walked back about fifty feet into the woods and
Speaker 4: they discovered Shawn's body. Sean had been out in the
Speaker 4: wilderness or out in the elements for two weeks, and
Speaker 4: so he was decomposed to a degree. Part of his
Speaker 4: job bone was missing, his chest had been born open
Speaker 4: from wild animals feeding, and so the pathologist who did
Speaker 4: the autopsy on Sean was not able to determine a
Speaker 4: cause of death for Sean. As far as forensic evidence,
Speaker 4: they were able to show that Sean had ingested at
Speaker 4: least two or three beers and some over the counter
Speaker 4: cold medication that would make a person drowsy. And that
Speaker 4: was a signature of Ron Bailey. Basically, he would ply
Speaker 4: his victims with alcohol and drugs so that it would
Speaker 4: lower their defenses and he could take it vantage of them.
Speaker 2: That uses has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: Now you're right that he's on the run. Tell us
Speaker 2: how police finally capture him and those conditions therein.
Speaker 4: Well, he's back in George Soaper's trailer. They have that
Speaker 4: under surveillance. They're waiting for a positive identification of Sean
Speaker 4: so that they can charge. They felt they had enough
Speaker 4: to charge him with kidnapping, and so they did that first.
Speaker 4: They were waiting for idea of the body before they
Speaker 4: could charge him with murder, so they issued the warrant
Speaker 4: for the kidnapping and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. They
Speaker 4: moved in to arrest him in Florida. The trailer was
Speaker 4: empty and so a huge, huge, huge man hunt ensues
Speaker 4: and there is as many is two hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: law enforcement people involved in this search for Ron Bailey,
Speaker 4: and they have him pinned down to about a ten
Speaker 4: mile square area. There's patrol cars every five hundred feet literally,
Speaker 4: and this search goes on for two days. They've got helicopters,
Speaker 4: they've got ATVs, they've got Lisa on horseback going through
Speaker 4: this dense wooded area. They've got patrol cars every five
Speaker 4: hundred feet and they are not given up. They are
Speaker 4: not giving up. And finally, on I believe it was
Speaker 4: a Saturday night, they were going to search through the night,
Speaker 4: and a corrections deputy from the Marion County Sheriff's Office
Speaker 4: in Florida had come out to help, and she was
Speaker 4: on a point and she flashed it was just getting dark,
Speaker 4: and she turned her flashlight over poor defense and there
Speaker 4: stood Ron Bailey with his hands up and he said,
Speaker 4: my name's Ron Bailey. I'm tired, I'm hungry. I give up,
Speaker 4: and he was taken into custody without incident.
Speaker 2: You write about the attorneys that assemble immediately for his defense,
Speaker 2: Y Kassar, if that's the pronunciation, and then you talk
Speaker 2: about that he realizes that he's going to need some assistance.
Speaker 2: So just tell us briefly about these defense attorneys and
Speaker 2: they have to speak to their client.
Speaker 4: Ray Casar is a brand new attorney. He'd been out
Speaker 4: of law school, I believe for a year. His criminal
Speaker 4: cases really consisted of suspended driving, drunk drivers, things like that.
Speaker 4: Didn't have a lot of experience in capital cases, and
Speaker 4: so he brought on a second attorney by the name
Speaker 4: of Chuck Murphy and they shared office space in Farmington Hills.
Speaker 4: Ray Kassar is a very genuine person, deeply committed to
Speaker 4: his clients. Just top of the line. I can't say
Speaker 4: enough good things about Ray Kasar just very genuine Chuck
Speaker 4: Murphy kind of boisterous, friendly enough, but kind of a
Speaker 4: gregarious personality.
Speaker 3: And so they went.
Speaker 4: When Ron was caught in Florida and flown back, he
Speaker 4: waived his extradition. So on Sunday he was flown back
Speaker 4: to Michigan and they waited at the jail for him
Speaker 4: for him to arrive. Chuck Murphy didn't want to go in.
Speaker 4: Ray Kassars frightened to death. He says, what do I
Speaker 4: say to him? Chuck Murphy told him, just find out
Speaker 4: what's going on. And so when Ray Kassar went into
Speaker 4: me Ron Bailey for the very first time, Ron Bailey
Speaker 4: was covered in cuts and bruises and insect bites from
Speaker 4: being on the run in a swamp and forest for
Speaker 4: two days. And he said, you look horrible, he says.
Speaker 4: He said, did they beat you? And Ron Bailey said
Speaker 4: beat me?
Speaker 3: You mean the cops?
Speaker 4: He said no, He said, I was on the run
Speaker 4: for two days. These are all mosquito bites and things
Speaker 4: like that. But that's how Ray Casar met Rob Bailey
Speaker 4: for the first time.
Speaker 2: And Ron was forthright with his attorneys. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: in this book exactly where he first confides in these
Speaker 2: attorneys about his treatment at the Hawthorne Center and doctor Tombo.
Speaker 2: But he does the attorneys do speak to Ron's father,
Speaker 2: Al to get sort of his background as well. So
Speaker 2: for the a nation of those things, what's the information
Speaker 2: that those are defense attorneys at least have as a
Speaker 2: some motivation and obviously some sort of possible defense for
Speaker 2: these crimes.
Speaker 4: Well, just before Ron Bailey was captured, Jose Tombo called
Speaker 4: Alfred Bailey and he said, we need to meet with you. Well,
Speaker 4: Alfred was worried about Ron, and so he said, I
Speaker 4: can't talk right now. He said, call Raykassar, call my attorney.
Speaker 4: And so Tombo calls up Rayasar.
Speaker 3: And he says, I can help you.
Speaker 4: I can give you all the information that you need
Speaker 4: to show that Ron is insane, he said, But he said,
Speaker 4: we have to do it after hours at your office.
Speaker 4: So it was this big clandestine meeting, this secret meeting
Speaker 4: between Ray Casar, Murphy, Alfred Bailey, and Jose Tombo. And
Speaker 4: Jose Tombo comes in and he says, again, I can
Speaker 4: give you all the stuff that you need to show
Speaker 4: that Ron Bailey's insane, he said, but you cannot bring
Speaker 4: up the trip that I removed him from Northville Psychiatric
Speaker 4: Regional Hospital and took him to the races in Canada.
Speaker 4: He said, you can't bring that up. And what they
Speaker 4: found out was that Ron Bailey had told them about
Speaker 4: this sexual relationship with Jose Tombo, and his own dad
Speaker 4: didn't believe him until Tombo came in and said, I'll
Speaker 4: give you all the information you need, but you can't
Speaker 4: bring up this trip to the Windsor Racetrack in Canada
Speaker 4: where I took Ron. And it was at that point
Speaker 4: Alfred Bailey knew that everything Ron had told him was
Speaker 4: true about the sexual relationship with doctor Tombo. He hadn't
Speaker 4: believed his own son until Tombo came in and said,
Speaker 4: you can't mention.
Speaker 2: This extraordinary you right too. That Bailey's house is searched,
Speaker 2: and they also the task force found Bailey's station wagon
Speaker 2: someone else had purchased it. But they also searched the
Speaker 2: house and found two blankets with yellow fibers that had
Speaker 2: been found on Kenny Myers on his tennis shoes and
Speaker 2: that was taken to the Michigan State Police Lab in
Speaker 2: Northville for analysis.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when one of the detectives Don Brooks from the
Speaker 4: state Police went to seize a couple guns.
Speaker 3: That were at the house.
Speaker 4: Mister Bailey took him down in the basement, which is
Speaker 4: where Ron slept. It was just a big, open family room,
Speaker 4: and Don Brooks just started taking photos and he found
Speaker 4: out later in one of the photos there was a
Speaker 4: yellow blanket and the Lavonia police said that when Kenny
Speaker 4: Myers was found, he had fibers on his velcro tennis
Speaker 4: shoes that were yellow in color, and so the blanket
Speaker 4: was ultimately seized and they matched those fibers with the
Speaker 4: fibers on Kenny Myers tennis shoes.
Speaker 2: You're right that they find out law enforcement finds out
Speaker 2: that Bailey had gotten five years probation or previous charges
Speaker 2: which included attempted murder, assault, and kidnapping.
Speaker 3: He did he'd gotten.
Speaker 4: That was the dilemma that that early judge had was
Speaker 4: do I send him to prison or do I put
Speaker 4: him on probation and try to get him some psychiatric help.
Speaker 3: And he felt that Ron Bailey.
Speaker 4: At sixteen years old, he was young enough where psychiatric
Speaker 4: help might might be a corrective action for him, and
Speaker 4: that's what he did. And the public was outraged when
Speaker 4: Kenny Myers was murdered, and when Sean Moore was murdered,
Speaker 4: finding out that Ron Bailey had been given probation after
Speaker 4: an attempted murder and kidnapping charge years before.
Speaker 2: It's interesting you write that there is again this public outcry,
Speaker 2: but also it's from the media and generated stories, and
Speaker 2: you write that Kasar sees that there's an obvious leak
Speaker 2: and then traces it back to his own office. Tell
Speaker 2: us about this bizarre incident.
Speaker 3: Yeah, told me.
Speaker 4: I interviewed Ray and he said that one of the
Speaker 4: one of the network reporters. Maybe she wasn't with the
Speaker 4: network at that time, but she ended up being with
Speaker 4: the National Network, receiving several awards. But she pulled him
Speaker 4: aside and she said we need to talk, and she said,
Speaker 4: we don't think it's fair, but there's a leak. Every
Speaker 4: time Ray Casar would go and interview his client, Ron Bailey,
Speaker 4: he'd go back and he'd share the interview with his partner, Chuck,
Speaker 4: and they were supposed to be the only two that
Speaker 4: knew the information. And then the next day he would
Speaker 4: see stuff from the interview printed in the media, so
Speaker 4: he knew there was a leak. Somewhere, and he thought
Speaker 4: maybe it was a corrections officer or something that maybe
Speaker 4: was listening in on their interviews, but he couldn't pinpoint it.
Speaker 4: So this other nastally known reporter pulls him aside and says,
Speaker 4: we don't think it's fair, but the leak is coming
Speaker 4: from your office. It's Chuck, and Ray Kassar was just
Speaker 4: just blindsided, a dumbfounded that it could be his own
Speaker 4: law partner, Chuck Murphy, and so he confronted Chuck about it,
Speaker 4: and Chuck said, well, you don't understand. He said, no,
Speaker 4: he said, I do understand. He said, I am not
Speaker 4: going to share anything more with you if you're going
Speaker 4: to leak it to the media. And nobody knows what
Speaker 4: Chuck's motive was to do that. It could just be
Speaker 4: that because of his gregarious personality that he just liked
Speaker 4: to talk and intimate details that should have only been
Speaker 4: known between an attorney and his client were being leaked
Speaker 4: and it was ending up in the media.
Speaker 2: Tell us about el Brooks Patterson and Frank del Verro
Speaker 2: and the initiative to get prepared for this trial.
Speaker 4: Well, Elbrooks Patterson was the prosecutor for Oakland County. During
Speaker 4: the Oakland County child killings, there was such a concern
Speaker 4: for the safety of children. There was literally, and I've
Speaker 4: used this term before, I'll use it again here. It
Speaker 4: was literally a palpable fear in the community for the
Speaker 4: safety of children in the mid seventies, and Elbrooks Patterson
Speaker 4: literally sent out a memo to all the law enforcement
Speaker 4: agencies in the Tri County area down there authorizing them
Speaker 4: to stop every car that was out at night between
Speaker 4: the hours of like midnight and six am or nine pm.
Speaker 4: And I forget what the timeframe was, but he knew
Speaker 4: that it was illegal for them to do that, but
Speaker 4: it was in the interest of finding one of the
Speaker 4: last Oapen County child victims, in the hopes of finding
Speaker 4: that young person alive. And so he was a very
Speaker 4: conservative prosecutor and well respected in the community. He was
Speaker 4: a proponent of capital punishment. He felt that criminals got
Speaker 4: all the advantages in prison and it just wasn't tough
Speaker 4: enough for him, and so he was a leader in
Speaker 4: trying to get capital punishment back. On the Michigan ballot.
Speaker 4: Frank del Verro was the Livingston County prosecutor. He'd not
Speaker 4: been in office for very long when this occurred, and
Speaker 4: he teamed up with his chiefs assistant, David Morris, and
Speaker 4: they put together a prosecution that.
Speaker 3: Was the best.
Speaker 4: David Morris handled the insanity defense that the defense team
Speaker 4: came up with, while Frank del Vero handled like the
Speaker 4: criminal aspect of it, the evidence and the case and
Speaker 4: things like that. And they put together a formidable team
Speaker 4: and they were able to defeat Ray Caasara and Chuck
Speaker 4: Murphy and get the jury to convict Ron Bailey of
Speaker 4: first degree murder.
Speaker 2: That jusus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: Now you just mentioned that, and you jumped ahead, but
Speaker 2: I think we won't go into it too far because,
Speaker 2: as we spoke earlier, I find it outrageous to consider
Speaker 2: this insanity defense when it has no foundation in the
Speaker 2: first place. And then we have to listen to this
Speaker 2: ridiculous motivation for Ron Bailey to have committed these murders,
Speaker 2: first from Ron Bailey's version of events to doctor Tombo,
Speaker 2: and then finally at the trial, because doctor Tombo is
Speaker 2: missing an action, they're looking for him, they can't find him.
Speaker 2: And this doctor Dreyer testifies at the trial, including again
Speaker 2: surprisingly I think Ron Bailey. So just give us this
Speaker 2: what the defense went to court with and how the
Speaker 2: prosecution countered and Ron Bailey's appearance. Give us some of
Speaker 2: these highlights of this most extraordinary trial.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Ron Bailey made the claim that that doctor Tombo
Speaker 4: had forced him into a sexual relationship and therefore that
Speaker 4: caused him to be insane at the time that he
Speaker 4: killed Kenny Myers and Sean Moore in nineteen eighty four
Speaker 4: and eighty five. And so Ray Kasar after the meeting
Speaker 4: with doctor Tombo and Alfred Bailey and Chuck Murphy, they
Speaker 4: knew they were going to have to have Tombo testify.
Speaker 4: They absolutely knew it. But he also knew he'd probably
Speaker 4: never see him again because he figured that Tombo was
Speaker 4: going to split. Doctor Tombo was a Filipino doctor and
Speaker 4: he'd been with the Northfield Regional Psychiatric Hospital for several
Speaker 4: years and was very well respected. But they tried to
Speaker 4: serve doctor Tombo a subpoena for the trial and he
Speaker 4: was nowhere to be found. He was intentionally avoiding testifying
Speaker 4: basically because he knew he'd have to admit that he'd
Speaker 4: had this sexual relationship with Ron Bailey, and so they
Speaker 4: couldn't find him, and they couldn't find him. In the meantime,
Speaker 4: a local psychiatrist, very well known, high profile, very narcissistic
Speaker 4: psychiatrist in the Detroit area who had a lot of
Speaker 4: TV commercials on several times a day, called Raksar and said,
Speaker 4: I can help you out, and so they hired him.
Speaker 4: They brought him on because no other psychiatrists in the
Speaker 4: Detroit area wanted anything to do with this case because
Speaker 4: it involved the murder of two teenage boys, and so
Speaker 4: they brought doctor Dryer on, doctor Joel Dryer. Doctor Dryer
Speaker 4: was an interesting individual. His testimony was, from what I saw,
Speaker 4: was very random and very disjointed and very difficult to understand.
Speaker 4: And the prosecution was able to show that Ron Bailey
Speaker 4: was not insane. They brought in the state psychiatrists, that
Speaker 4: psychologists and psychiatrists that had interviewed Ron Bailey several times,
Speaker 4: and their testimony was impeccable. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 4: I interviewed doctor Harley Stock, who was the States psychiatrist
Speaker 4: as a psychologist, and he said that Ron Bailey was
Speaker 4: one of the most sadistic serial killers he'd ever met.
Speaker 2: What I found very very interesting is the the profound
Speaker 2: lies that he was able to impart to his attorneys.
Speaker 2: And I know you have respect for Kassar, but it's
Speaker 2: very interesting to have the only defense be an insanity defense,
Speaker 2: but try to put these very thin in terms of
Speaker 2: the motivation thread that would connect these crimes to any
Speaker 2: kind of motivation whatsoever. So'm I was especially angered reading
Speaker 2: all of the lies that were accepted Tombo had said
Speaker 2: and gone along with the voices that Ron Bailey apparently
Speaker 2: had heard. But what it seemed like is he trotted
Speaker 2: out all kinds of things, including the devil made me
Speaker 2: do it, and the psychiatrists and the lawyer took that
Speaker 2: the court anyway, And so I thought it was outrageous
Speaker 2: the trial itself, for the family and for the dutiful
Speaker 2: law enforcement to have to go through the process of
Speaker 2: listening to these absurd, profound and quite ridiculous lies.
Speaker 3: It's a very very.
Speaker 4: Difficult, not only for the families, but literally for the
Speaker 4: investigators to have to listen to that too. I'll give
Speaker 4: you a perfect example in my book that I wrote
Speaker 4: four or five years ago, Killing Women, about serial killer
Speaker 4: Don Miller. He claimed that he was insane, that the
Speaker 4: devil made him do it, that he only went into
Speaker 4: this house and raped this fourteen year old girl because
Speaker 4: he was trying to savor from the devil. And then
Speaker 4: he ends up in prison counseling session where he admits
Speaker 4: that was all made up. And that's the beauty of
Speaker 4: having state psychiatrists and psychologists because they can come in
Speaker 4: and in their interviews they are able to tell whether
Speaker 4: or not a person is what they call malingering or lying.
Speaker 4: They do it through formal testing and they do it
Speaker 4: through their interviews. And doctor Harley Stock did a fabulous job,
Speaker 4: and doctor Lynn Blunt another fabulous psychiatrist. They did a
Speaker 4: great job in showing that everything that Ron Bailey said
Speaker 4: wasn't true and they were able to convince the jury
Speaker 4: of that through the masterful questioning and cross examination of
Speaker 4: David Morse, the assistant prosecutor who handled that insanity defense,
Speaker 4: and picking it apart piece by piece. It's difficult for
Speaker 4: the family to hear a person like Ron Bailey make
Speaker 4: those statements, but it is an absolute joy from an
Speaker 4: investigator's standpoint to watch the prosecution tear that defense apart.
Speaker 3: And that's what they did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as evidence of that. You have that the deliberation
Speaker 2: was only two and a half hours for the jury.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the verdict.
Speaker 4: The verdict after two and a half hours was guilty
Speaker 4: of kidnapping and guilty of first degree murder. And it
Speaker 4: wasn't over with Sean Moore's case because they had put
Speaker 4: together a case against Ron Bailey for the kidnapping and
Speaker 4: murder of Kenny Myers. So after he was convicted in
Speaker 4: front of a jury by a jury in Shawn Moore's
Speaker 4: kidnapping and abduction, they're kidnapping and murder. He went on trial,
Speaker 4: but he chose a bench trial here in Michigan, that
Speaker 4: is a trial before the judge with no jury, and
Speaker 4: the judge listened to the evidence in the Kenny Myers
Speaker 4: case and knew by the end of the trial that
Speaker 4: Ron Bailey was guilty, and he was convicted in Kenny
Speaker 4: Myers case.
Speaker 2: Very interesting. Gray gasar uses doctor Dreyer again at his
Speaker 2: star witness in this Kenny Meyers trial.
Speaker 3: He does and.
Speaker 4: Doctor Dreyer Dreyer Der he wanted to illustrate to the
Speaker 4: judge how he interviewed Ron Bailey, and so he wanted
Speaker 4: to do He literally wanted to re enact the interview,
Speaker 4: and the chief assistant at that time tim Oh, my gosh,
Speaker 4: having a I can't think of his last name right now,
Speaker 4: Tim Kenny. I'm sorry, Tim Kenny. Yes, he ended up
Speaker 4: actually being the chief court chief Circuit Court judge in
Speaker 4: Wayne County. But Tim Kenny said, that's fine. He says,
Speaker 4: he can reenact how he interviewed how he interviewed round Bailey,
Speaker 4: he said, but he has to stay on the stand
Speaker 4: afterwards so I can cross examine him. And Tim Kenny
Speaker 4: was so confident at that point he said that that's
Speaker 4: where I knew we had him.
Speaker 2: You're right at the end of this that Bailey faced
Speaker 2: a third trial, but prosecutor Tim Kenny filed a motion
Speaker 2: to dismiss there was no real practical purpose to another
Speaker 2: trial in this case.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a the case a month before, a
Speaker 4: month before Kenny Myers was kidnapped, there was another teen
Speaker 4: boy who was kidnapped and sexually assaulted and released, and
Speaker 4: they were able to show that Ron Bailey was the
Speaker 4: perpetrator in that case too, And so in addition to
Speaker 4: being charged in Kenny Myers abduction and murder, they had
Speaker 4: an added charge of kidnapping and sexual assault a month
Speaker 4: before that, and that was the case that was after
Speaker 4: Ron Bailey was convicted in both Kenny Myers and Seawan
Speaker 4: Moore's abductions and murders. They just went ahead and dismissed
Speaker 4: that earlier charge of kidnapping and sexual assault. It really
Speaker 4: would serve no purpose because Ron Bailey was sentenced to
Speaker 4: two life terms.
Speaker 2: You're right that he ends up in Leavenworth. Eventually there's
Speaker 2: death threats against him, so he's not having a good
Speaker 2: time in prison. But just to end this book, and
Speaker 2: you talk about the fate of doctor Tombo and the
Speaker 2: fate of doctor Dreyer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, doctor Tombo disappeared to this day, nobody knows if
Speaker 4: he's alive or dead. They suspect that he may have
Speaker 4: been concealed in the Filipino population in Detroit during the trial,
Speaker 4: and that he eventually made it over the border somehow
Speaker 4: and left the country. Whether he went back to the
Speaker 4: Philippines or whether he is in Canada somewhere, nobody really knows.
Speaker 4: Doctor Dreyer he ended up in California and he was
Speaker 4: arrested for basically writing fake prescriptions, thousands and thousands of them.
Speaker 4: And he was convicted by a jury and sentenced to
Speaker 4: ten years in prison. He is probably in his nineties now,
Speaker 4: still living in California, but he did ten years in
Speaker 4: prison for writing prescription drug.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting, in just in closing, before I say bid
Speaker 2: you ado, you say that in all of this there
Speaker 2: are still questions remaining. What are those questions remaining?
Speaker 4: Well, again, this book is not about the Oakland County
Speaker 4: child killings, but that case was reopened in two thousand
Speaker 4: and six, the thirtieth anniversary of the first victims kidnapping
Speaker 4: in that case, and in that case, it's a very
Speaker 4: complicated case. But along the way in the two thousands,
Speaker 4: they were able to track down some hairs that were
Speaker 4: found on Mark Stebbens's body, a hair found on Mark
Speaker 4: Stebbens's body, a hair found on Timothy King's body, and
Speaker 4: a hair found in a suspects vehicle who was interviewed
Speaker 4: right after Mark Stebbens was kidnapped in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 4: Those three hairs all matched each other, though, so they
Speaker 4: have a profile of the a DNA profile of the killer.
Speaker 4: It didn't match the owner of the car, and they
Speaker 4: have done DNA analysis over several suspects over the years
Speaker 4: in hopes of finding the killer. Sadly they haven't. And
Speaker 4: so in one of the books that I referenced and
Speaker 4: did my research from, called The Snow Killings, about the
Speaker 4: Oakland County child killings, there's an interviewed chapter devoted to
Speaker 4: Ron Bailey and how they interviewed Ron Bailey regarding the
Speaker 4: possibility of his involvement in the Oaken County child killings.
Speaker 4: And by that when the case was reopened, Ron Bailey's
Speaker 4: name was brought up, and everyone always said, well, he
Speaker 4: was in the mental hospital at that time. He was
Speaker 4: in the mental hospital, he was locked down. It couldn't
Speaker 4: have been him, So nobody ever followed up. Well, it
Speaker 4: turns out that just before Timothy King's abduction and just
Speaker 4: before Mark Stebben's abduction, Ron Bailey had been released from
Speaker 4: the psychiatric hospital. And so they went to Ron Bailey
Speaker 4: and they said, we want your DNA and Rob Bailey
Speaker 4: said why. They said, we're going to compare it with
Speaker 4: the mers of four children in the Detroit area. And
Speaker 4: Ron Bailey got so flustered that he could barely sign
Speaker 4: his name. And I've seen Ron Bailey's handwriting and it's beautiful.
Speaker 4: He's got a very very neat cursive penmanship. They said
Speaker 4: he could barely write his name when they told him that.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: And so the DNL I'm not going to tell you
Speaker 4: what the DNA analysis is, but the suspicion was always
Speaker 4: that whoever was doing the Oakland County child killing killings,
Speaker 4: whether it was a single person or a group of people,
Speaker 4: that they likely had a younger person who would lure
Speaker 4: the kids over safely to the car. Wow, and.
Speaker 3: Before the kids were kidnapped.
Speaker 4: And so I asked one of the investigators, as said,
Speaker 4: I said, do you believe that Ron Bailey still could
Speaker 4: have had some part in those four murders in the
Speaker 4: seventies because he was sixteen at the time, riding a
Speaker 4: bike everywhere getting out of the mental hospital. And he said,
Speaker 4: there's absolutely no doubt in his mind that he could
Speaker 4: be involved in some way.
Speaker 3: Was he the lure?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 3: Very possibly. So it remains to be seen.
Speaker 4: Those cases are still unsolved.
Speaker 2: Incredible. You'll have to keep us posted, no doubt, I will,
Speaker 2: I will. I want to thank you so much Rod
Speaker 2: Sadler for coming on and talking about your extraordinary new book,
Speaker 2: Depraved Obsession. The gripping true story of law enforcements hunt
Speaker 2: for a Sadistic serial Killer. For those people that might
Speaker 2: want to check out more about this story, can you
Speaker 2: refer us to a website or any social media you do?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, i have a website rodsadler dot com. I'm on
Speaker 4: all the social media. I'm on X's RMS author, I'm
Speaker 4: on Instagram as RMS author, i am on Lincoln as
Speaker 4: Rod Sadler, So you can find me all over the
Speaker 4: social media pages and that's where i do most of
Speaker 4: my updates. And really I've been traveling over the last
Speaker 4: oh two or three months across the entire state of
Speaker 4: Michigan from Lower Michigan through the up doing book talks
Speaker 4: about my last book and this upcoming book. So check
Speaker 4: my website and you can find out where I'll be
Speaker 4: next and maybe you can take in a book talk.
Speaker 2: Sounds fantastic. Thank you so much, Rod Sadler. Depraved Obsession,
Speaker 2: The gripping true story of law enforcements Hunt for a
Speaker 2: Sadistic serial Killer. Thank you so much for this interview,
Speaker 2: and you have a great evening and good night.