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The Michigan Murderer · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:07
  Discretion. Is it by maybe it murder. Most of us, as children,
• 0:29
  were taught about stranger danger to fear unknown people. A mother squeezes her
• 0:35
  child's hand a little tighter when a stranger walks by. The neighbors wonder about
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  a person that lives in the house with the uncut grass and the aluminum foil
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  on the windows. Teen girls are cautioned not to walk by vans that you
• 0:49
  can't see inside, And as long as we avoid those situations, we should
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  be safe. Right, not necessarily. John Norman Chapman was born on June
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  seventeenth, nineteen forty seven, in Windsor, Ontario. His father was Canadian
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  and his mother was American. He was the youngest of three children. His
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  father was an abusive alcoholic, and he left shortly after John was born.
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  His mother soon remarried, and her second husband was also an abusive alcoholic who
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  took a lot of his anger out on John. His mother left and relocated
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  the family to Detroit, Michigan. It was there that she met William Collins.
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  Perhaps the third time would be the charm, so his mother married again.
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  Not only did she take Collins as her last name, but her children
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  did as well. The third marriage only lasted a few years, and even
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  though his childhood was pretty traumatic, he grew up to be quite the all
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  American young man. John attended Saint Clement Catholic High School, where he was
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  an honor student, captain of the football team, and star pitcher of the
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  baseball team. After graduating, he attended did Eastern Michigan University. He majored
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  in elementary education. He joined Theta Kai fraternity. He worked out and even
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  landed a few modeling gigs. He loved motorcycles. What college girl wouldn't want
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  to go on a date with him. The town where John lived was full
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  of college co eds, and it was the sixties. Most of the young
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  adults were enjoying life, although very few of them had their own cars,
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  so they hitchhiked. But on July ninth, nineteen sixty seven, Mary Flazar,
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  a nineteen year old accounting student, disappeared. A witness said that a
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  blue and gray Chevrolet offered her a ride and she refused. The vehicle left,
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  but then returned. Her body was later found near a farm in Superior
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  Township on August seventh. Mary had been stabbed more than thirty times, beaten
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  part of her hand was missing and her feet had been severed at the ankles.
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  Her body was so decomposed that they couldn't tell if she had been raped,
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  and they had to use dental records to confirm her identity. The investigators
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  noticed she had not been killed in that location, but had been moved around
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  the area. At the funeral home, a man asked if he could take
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  a picture of the body in the casket for the family. The employees denied
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  the request. The employees noted that that man left angry and that they didn't
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  even see a camera. Then, on July fifth, nineteen sixty eight,
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  construction workers found the body of a woman on the roadside in ann Arbor.
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  The body found was twenty year old Joan Shell, a local art student.
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  Joan had been raped and she was stabbed twenty five times. Her skull was
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  fractured, her throat was slashed, and her skirt was tied around her neck.
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  Due to the similarities, they assumed that her case was related to flazars.
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  Her roommates had reported her missing. On June thirtieth, Joan was hitchhiking
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  and accepted a ride from a guy driving a red and black Pontiac Bonneville.
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  Her roommate, even helped the police form a sketch. They questioned one hundred
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  and fifty owners of Red and Black Bonneville's, but didn't find a lead.
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  They interviewed Shell's neighbors. The neighbor across the street, John Collins, matched
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  the sketch. He said that he'd never met Joan and was at his mother's
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  that weekend of June thirtieth. The police did not confirm that alibi. On
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  March twentieth, nineteen sixty nine, Jane Mixer, a twenty three year old
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  law student, went missing after she posted the need for a ride to Muskegon
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  on a bulletin board. Her body was found the next day on top of
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  a grave in the Denton Cemetery. She was clothed and had not been beaten
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  or raped, but she had been shot in the head. There were similarities
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  to the previous murders. She was a local student, and she had something
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  around her neck, so investigators assumed the cases were connected. Just a few
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  days later, on March twenty fifth, a naked and mutilated body was found
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  by a surveyor just a few hundred yards from where they found Joan Shell's body.
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  One third of her skull was fractured. Some kind of leather strap had
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  been used to whip her body, her garter belt had been tied around her
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  neck, a piece of her shirt had been pushed down her throat, and
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  a tree branch was shoved into her vagina. The body was soon identified as
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  Marylyn's Skelton, a sixteen year old that had been seen hitchhiking the day before.
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  After Skelton's murder, police from five jurisdictions formally combined resources in an effort
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  to solve these crimes. Although they had exchanged some information before, they had
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  not officially been working together. It wouldn't be long before they had yet another
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  victim on their board. On April sixteenth, the body of thirteen year old
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  Dawn Basim was found on a desolate road in Ipsilante. Dawn had been at
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  a friend's house the night before and only had to walk about five blocks alone
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  to get home, but she never made it there. She had been stabbed,
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  slash wounds across her body and handkerchief was in her mouth. Her blouse,
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  along with an electrical flex were wrapped around her neck, but there was
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  no sign of sexual assault. The investigators believed she was killed one hundred yards
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  away in an old farmhouse, where they found blood and articles of clothing.
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  They even found Skelton's missing earring there. This added to their theory that the
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  murderer was revisiting the sites. Then, on May thirteenth, the farmhouse burned
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  to the ground. The police stated that it was an act of arson.
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  Did the murderer burn it down maybe? They found five recently cut lilacs arranged
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  on the driveway, mimicking a memorial site, but the Michigan murderer was not
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  done. On June ninth, another body was found. Her throat had been
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  slashed, she had been stabbed multiple times, and she was shot in the
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  head. The pathologist believed that she was also raped after death. Her clothes
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  were scattered and her shoe was missing. The body was that of Alice Colam,
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  a twenty one year old student going to college to better understand social relationships.
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  She had been last seen at a party a couple of nights before.
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  Besides Mixer, she was the only other victim to have a gunshot wound.
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  By July of that year, over a thousand convicted sex offenders had been interviewed
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  and thousands of leads investigated. Sales drastically increased of tear gas, knives,
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  and security locks. Hitchhiking slowed down, and many females accepted a buddy system
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  when walking around. The police knew the suspect preferred Caucasian burnette females. Beyond
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  that, they had little to nothing to go on. Eventually, the Michigan
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  murderer would make an error and then they would find him. On July twenty
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  third, Susan Bidemann, an eighteen year old student, was reported missing by
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  her roommate. Her body was found three days later off Huron River Parkway.
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  She was nude, had been strangled and had lacerations so severe that strips of
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  her skin had been ripped off. A caustic substance had been poured over her
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  upper body and down her throat. Susan had been raped, and her underwear
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  had been pushed into her vagina. They also found seamen and clippings of hair
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  that did not belong to the victim on her underwear. The police expected the
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  killer to return to the site, so they forced a media blackout, keeping
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  the murderer from knowing that the body had been found. They placed a mannikin
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  at the site and set up watch. After midnight, a man was seen
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  running away from the site, but due to heavy rains, the officer couldn't
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  make out a description. He tried to call it in, but the storm
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  caused interference with the radios. When investigators investigated and retraced Susan's steps, they
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  found a wig shop. The owner told them that Susan had come in and
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  was with a man on a motorcycle. Diana Ghosh said the young woman told
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  her that she only had done two things foolish in her life, buying a
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  wig and accepting a ride from the stranger on the bike. When Diana described
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  the man, one of the patrolmen thought that the man sounded like former Theta
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  Kai brother John Collins. He got photos from one of Collins's old girlfriends and
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  showed them to the shop owner. She was sure Collins was the man she
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  saw that day. On July twenty seven, investigators went to Collins's apartment and
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  asked him to go to the police station with them. Collins refused. The
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  next night, Collins's roommate saw him carrying out a box wrapped in a blanket.
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  He saw a woman's shoe and a purse in the box. Two days
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  later, the police showed up with a search warrant, but didn't find any
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  physical evidence linking Collins to the other crimes. Collins's uncle was a sergeant on
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  the police force, David Leak. He was notified of his nephew's suspects status
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  before the arrest. He had just returned from a trip and Collins had been
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  house sitting to care for their dog. David's wife had noticed some weird things
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  in their basement. He realized his basement might be related to the case.
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  In the Leak's basement, investigators found blood that matched Susan's blood type and hair
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  clippings that matched the ones on the underwear. On August first, John Collins
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  was formerly arraigned. In early August, Washington All County was contacted by investigators
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  in Salinas, California. It was discovered Collins was in California during the time
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  of another murder. Roxy Phillips, a seventeen year old, was found naked,
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  beaten, and strangled with a belt around her neck on August fifth.
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  The cases were formerly connected, although John never went to California for trial.
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  In August of nineteen seventy, John Collins was unanimously found guilty of the first
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  degree murder of Susan Binnemann and sentenced to life in prison without parole. While
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  in prison, he started writing letters to the press and even let investigators come
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  in for more interviews. He revealed disturbing information that often confirmed their decades old
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  suspicions. He makes his home in g Robert Cotton Correctional Facility and corresponds with
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  quite a few women. In two thousand and one, with new DNA testing
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  available, Mixer's case was reopened and the DNA on the stockings produced the match.
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  Gary Leidermann, a former nurse, was charged with Mixer's murder. So
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  how many actual victims did John Collins have? No one except Collins is sure.
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  If the officers would have had a search warrant in hand at their first
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  visit, they might have found whatever items Collins got rid of in that box.
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  What we do know is that looks can be deceiving, and John Collins
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  preyed on young women with his trustworthy smile. The Michigan murderer or Ipsilante ripper
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  is off the streets, but still in our nightmares. That's ten minute murder
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  for today. Brief and binge able true crime. I'm Joe. I'm the
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  host, and I really appreciate you listening today. And yes, I've been
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  sick. I still sound sick, but I am not currently sick. I
• 12:35
  guess I am sick. I don't know. I feel fine. I'm at
• 12:39
  the point where I stopped taking medicine every four hours, so I hate doing
• 12:41
  that. So maybe I stopped doing that a little bit too soon. I
• 12:46
  might recover a little bit faster if I were to keep taking the medicine.
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  But I can't stay. I'd rather eat a five by seven rug than to
• 12:52
  take four hour every four hours to take medicine. That drives me crazy.
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  Anyway, I feel great, but I sound like this. Sorry, you're
• 13:00
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• 13:03
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• 14:11
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• 14:13
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