How did a University of Michigan law student’s simple request for a ride home turn into one of Michigan’s most chilling unsolved mysteries? This episode takes you through the eerie Denton Cemetery in Belleville, Michigan, uncovering the tragic murder of Jane Louise Mixer in 1969. We delve into historical newspaper articles, exploring the harrowing details of her gruesome death and the complex investigation that followed. Listen as we piece together potential connections to other local murders, all set against the ominous backdrop of the cemetery where her body was discovered.
Join us for the second part of our journey as ghost guru Tom Dowling and I recount our spine-tingling late-night exploration. From strange lights in the sky to shadowy figures and unsettling noises, our investigation reveals a series of inexplicable phenomena that defy logical explanation. We discuss the importance of reviewing paranormal evidence with fresh eyes, sharing personal tips for preserving these eerie encounters. Whether you're a seasoned skeptic or a believer in the supernatural, this episode promises to leave you questioning the unknown and eagerly awaiting our next spine-tingling tale.
How did a University of Michigan law student’s simple request for a ride home turn into one of Michigan’s most chilling unsolved mysteries? This episode takes you through the eerie Denton Cemetery in Belleville, Michigan, uncovering the tragic murder of Jane Louise Mixer in 1969. We delve into historical newspaper articles, exploring the harrowing details of her gruesome death and the complex investigation that followed. Listen as we piece together potential connections to other local murders, all set against the ominous backdrop of the cemetery where her body was discovered.
Join us for the second part of our journey as ghost guru Tom Dowling and I recount our spine-tingling late-night exploration. From strange lights in the sky to shadowy figures and unsettling noises, our investigation reveals a series of inexplicable phenomena that defy logical explanation. We discuss the importance of reviewing paranormal evidence with fresh eyes, sharing personal tips for preserving these eerie encounters. Whether you're a seasoned skeptic or a believer in the supernatural, this episode promises to leave you questioning the unknown and eagerly awaiting our next spine-tingling tale.
Good evening everyone. It's your host, melissa at Strange, strange Beyond Insane, and tonight I'm going to play a live recording that Tom and I did back. This was April 13th, so a few months ago, basically but it's about Denton Cemetery in Belleville, michigan, so I'm going to go ahead and play the live clips for you guys Get set up here. Good evening everyone. It's your host, melissa at Strange to Ranch, beyond Insane, and tonight we are live at Denton Cemetery in Wayne County. Is that Belleville?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think it's just outside of Belleville.
Speaker 1:
And I have the famous ghost guru.
Speaker 2:
Tom Dowling. Hello, everybody Hanging out with Melissa.
Speaker 1:
So I've been wanting. I can't, we can't remember if we've come here. I think maybe we've came here and like pulled out, we didn't realize which one this was before. So I up on a tomb in 1969. So it was March 22nd 1969. And this is about. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:
This article is from the Ann Arbor News and it says who gave the murder victim a ride? Police were searching today for the person who answered Jane Louise Mixer's bulletin board ad for a ride home Thursday. The body of Miss Mixer, 23, of Muskegon, a law student at the university, was found Friday just inside a cyclone fence surrounding Denton Cemetery on Cross Street, two miles east of Ypsilanti, in Van Buren Township, wayne County. So basically, an autopsy showed that she was shot fatally, shot twice. She was strangled and beaten. The killer apparently fatally shot her first and then driven to the cemetery where he stretched the body on the grave site, placed the head against a cemetery marker and covered the body. So this article from 1969 just reads that police questioned her friends and family and they're trying to find out who responded to her bulletin little note that she needed a ride home Thursday, right, yeah, thursday, Thursday, right, yeah, thursday, okay. So now they are saying that there were two other bodies before her. The body of Mary Flezzar, a student at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, who disappeared July 9, 1967, was found a few days afterward on a farm in Superior Township. And then Joan Schell, another Eastern Michigan University co -ed, was last seen hitchhiking from the Ypsilanti campus in July 1968. Her body was found a day later.
Speaker 1:
The investigation apparently has established that Ms Mixer, the one that was found here in the cemetery, told her boyfriend on Thursday that she had advertised on a bulletin board for a ride home to Muskegon and was leaving with an unnamed man. Nothing was found in Ms Mixer's room or in questioning her boyfriend that would shed any light on the identity of the driver. The girl's room was located in the University Law Quadrangle, quadrangle, quadrangle. I don't know if I'm reading that right. One question that concerned investigators is if the automobile was headed for Muskegon, why was the body found in Wayne County? So no motives for the slaying have been discovered ever by the police. So her parents, the one that unfortunately was found in the cemetery that we are sitting in right now, dr Dan C Mixer, and his wife, drove there from Muskegon. Dr Mixer was a dentist who comes from a family of dentists. Ms Nancy Grau lives near the cemetery, discovered the body Driving in her car, she said. I happened to look towards the cemetery and saw the body and I started screaming.
Speaker 1:
Miss Mixer was an honors graduate of the university's literary college last year. You guys know I cannot pronounce words the previous year she spent in France. I was just blinking close to us. Sorry, guys, I got a little distracted here. It's kind of eerie here. Yeah, she was valedictorian of her class in high school. A brother is a student at hope college and her sister, barbara joe, was graduated from the university of michigan in 1966. So she was here in college or for college. Um, and I am not seeing anything in these articles that show if this fucker was ever found body near. Okay, detective kenneth taylor, vips, lanny state police. I hunt focus on someone who was the take 23 year old freshman law student. She apparently she had been shot twice. Okay, I still don't see anything if somebody was caught or not. It's very fucking sad. Um, that's like really sick the evidence locker. Okay, so this is another article. It's from detroit free press, did it? Yeah, I bet seeing like right here I don't want to put.
Speaker 2:
Oh no, you're fine.
Speaker 1:
It's like giving me the creeps. Some of Michigan's most notorious homicide cases blah, blah, blah, wow. Map of murder scenes published by the detroit free press in july of 1969. So right here there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Jane louise mixer so that's who we're talking about. That was in the cemetery. Mary flezzar right? Yeah, I'm just leaning back a little bit. Oh, dawn Bassam, alice Collum, joan Lesbeth Schell, mary I'm sorry Marilyn Skeleton and Karen Sue I'm going to try to say that last name.
Speaker 1:
More than 35 years later, another man was found guilty of the other slayings that Collins was suspected of committing. This prompted authorities to reexamine the other cases and generate new information. Oh wow, look it. Here's a picture of her shoe. I gotta get this stupid advertising off. Look at all these pictures. Wow, that's fucked up. So Joan Elspeth Shell Shell, 20, was from Plymouth. She was found dead July 5th 1968. Then here's Mixer, 23 of Muskegon. She was found March 21st 1969.
Speaker 1:
Marilyn Skeleton was 16. She is from Romulus. Her body was found on March 25, 1969, so not much after he killed Mixer the next day. Her body was found near Glacier Way in Earhart. In 2009, michigan State Police took new evidence photographs of the contents of her purse. Items included things like lipstick, keys, sunglasses and a change purse. Along with Skeleton's personal items was a small photo album. The collection of photos had a message from friends written on the back Top Marilyn to a real cool girl with a swinging personality, good luck with the guys. Abc, frank Bottom. Eternity Hours fly, flowers die. New days, new ways pass by. Love stays. Marilyn To a girl who is both sweet and had a great personality, good luck in the future.
Speaker 1:
Terry, 1970, okay so Dawn Louise Bossom, 13. Wow, she's only 13. Oh, that's fucked up. Her body was found april 16th 1969, so about a month later. She was the youngest victim. Dawn was last seen on april 15th 1969 near the middle school. Um. So the student's body was found near gilleland Roads. She was strangled and her body slashed. Oh my God, some of her Body slashed. Yeah, it said body slashed. Some of her clothing was later found in an abandoned farmhouse. God, that's so fucked up. Oh, look at her little shoe. Oh, that makes me sad, god.
Speaker 1:
Alice Elizabeth Collum, 21, of Portage. Body was found on June 9, 1969. She was last seen dancing at a party in Ann Arbor on June 7, 1969. Wow, two days later her body was found near North Territorial Road and US 23. She was shot in the head and stabbed in the heart. Her clothes had been ripped off and scattered. Her shoes were missing.
Speaker 1:
Karen Sue Bieneman, 18, of Grand Rapids. Body was found on July 26, 1969. She was last seen in a wig shop in Ypsilanti on July 23, 1969. Her naked body was later found in a ravine off Riverside Drive near the Huron River in Ann Arbor Township. She was strangled and her face was beaten so badly it was unrecognizable.
Speaker 1:
John Norman Collins was convicted of murdering her. So, john Norman Collins, it took years to catch a killer who left two Michigan college towns and paralyzed with fear. But their search led them to an unlikely suspect Clean, cut, handsome and a good student. Behind that exterior was a man described by the victim's families as a monster, as a fucking monster. John Norman Collins, 22, of Centerline, of Centerline.
Speaker 1:
I wonder if my dad knew him. My dad grew up in Centerline. Holy shit, I'm just going to pause that right there. You guys, I actually forgot about this, um, about this man in Centerline. So I will be calling my father tomorrow at work when I have some downtime, to ask him if he was in school with this man or remembers this man, or maybe this guy's siblings, sorry, wow, that just gave me chills. Wow, small world, who's talking about it? Nice stuff, grandma still lives there. Collins, a 22-year-old Eastern Michigan University student, never fit anyone's image of a killer Handsome and clean-cut. He graduated from a Catholic high school, was football team. Oh my God, what if my dad played football with him? My dad was like a football star on Centerline.
Speaker 2:
Holy shit, what year was your dad in high school.
Speaker 1:
Well, he's going to be 73.
Speaker 2:
Well, you weren't born until what? 90? I was born in 88.
Speaker 1:
I'm 35. Football team captain and he was studying to be a fucking teacher. Of course you were going to be a fucking teacher. Had you gotten away with this, he would have killed way more people. Wow, collins was a suspect in the slayings, including an additional one in California. After his arrest in 1969, the killings stopped. At trial, a jury convicted him of murdering 18-year-old Karen Sue Bainman Bainman maybe. Police tried to catch Collins for two years. Collins loved motorcycles, a detail that later would come up at a trial and describes later in prison interviews with state police detectives. Wow, fucked up. That just gave me chills, though, but if my dad's going to be 73, let's do the math here, calculator. So my dad was born in 1951. Okay, and this?
Speaker 2:
happened in 1969. So he would have possibly still been in school, maybe, maybe. Well, he had school, for what?
Speaker 1:
18 years. Did I screenshot this guy? I think I did. Wow, all right, hey guys, it's Melissa back and Tom. It is officially 2.15, am it cut out? But let's just say 2.10, even 2.11.
Speaker 1:
So before that we've seen some kind of white. I don't want to call the light in the sky. It was some strange movement, cigar shape yeah, cigar shaped. We got a picture of it, um, and then it boom, it disappeared. Well then I seen it again, because I I seen some movement back here to the left, diagonal, diagonally, across in the corner. I told Tom I seen something again and he's been seeing stuff go back and forth from my truck and we're hearing all kinds of weird noises. You know we're doing some um EVP sessions and holy shit, so I don't even know how to explain it. I seen, so I seen that thing again in the sky and I jumped out to grab my camera. Tom said are you all right? And I said yeah, I go like that thing's back. So I'm trying to get a picture of it right and I'm zooming in and out and then all of a sudden again I seen like a shadow back there in that corner. I'm zooming in and out and then all of a sudden, again, I seen like a shadow back there in that corner. I'm like, okay, no, I see that I'm not crazy.
Speaker 1:
And then, boom, a man was fucking walking, tall, thin, about as tall as Tom, maybe very thin, long, long legs. Uh, looked to have, I guess, like a, like a suit on, maybe, or like a business attire, let's just say that. And he had a had a round hat on top with a brim around, like an old top hat. You guys, I'm gonna pause that right, right there, because not too much before this, when I was out with Tom at the cemetery, christina actually witnessed a man, a tall, like slender man, walking in a cemetery. I did not see it at first and she goes, melissa, I'm telling you you, he was just there. He's gone.
Speaker 1:
Well, then we both seen this tall slender man again like literally walk around like the little shed in the cemetery. We're like what, the like what is going on? And then she actually got his shadow walking on a video and I would love to know if that is the um, I guess infamous slender man with the hat, um, the hat man. Actually, jenny has been on um quite a bit of episodes on here on strange, during span, insane and she actually explained to me about the hat man at Eloise and a lot of people have been capturing him, or the figure of it, let's just say, and there's actually a documentary about this. So I just wanted to kind of add that it's strange to me that this figure is seen throughout a lot of different places, places, but not tall top hat, short rounded. And I asked for tom very anxiously, his flashlight. He's got a really cool flashlight, you guys. It's all ad, it's super bright, thin, and I shined it back there and it was gone, the shadow, it was just walking it. He had his head like slightly slanted down.
Speaker 2:
You want to talk? Yeah, we're seeing all kinds of stuff out here Like we want to get out, but then our heart starts racing so we stay in that truck and we're seeing stuff moving by the truck and things in the sky Something dropped from the sky?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so do you think paranormal and like, let's just say, ET or anything from the sky is related?
Speaker 2:
I do, I that I don't know. I've been told that aliens like to hang out at cemeteries. Why, I don't know. That's what I, because we've been told that we've got pictures of aliens at cemeteries that we didn't see until people seen them.
Speaker 1:
But yeah, days later, yeah, wow, that was, that was something Tall slender man With a round top hat.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, a round brim hat.
Speaker 1:
Top, like a kind of like. I don't, am I saying it right? It's a top hat, but not the tall top hat Like round brim hat, kind of like. I don't know if I'm saying it right, it's a top hat, but not the tall top hat Like short rounded.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's not like a cowboy hat, but it's got like a round top I almost want to say pimp hat.
Speaker 1:
I don't think it's a pimp hat. Oh, there was just a light that flashed over there. Did you see that?
Speaker 2:
No, it looked there. Did you see that?
Speaker 1:
no, we, it looked like lightning. Thank you so much. You saw online. No, this is just on our on the recorder. We were, uh, we were, sitting on a light flew across the windshield, uh, yeah, and I seen it from this corner, but you seen it right in the front and I didn't see it fully.
Speaker 2:
I just kind of like yeah I seen him go from the right to the left, right across the windshield, top of your windshield.
Speaker 1:
Wow, that's a pretty good cemetery but, like I said, it's Well, you guys will have to go back and listen. If you listen very closely, you will just hear. After we just said that about three seconds ago you hear, or even two seconds ago you hear a bell.
Speaker 2:
A very soft bell. Let me play it again. It's kind of eerie out here. Did you see that? No, it looked like lightning. You still on, you still on, live.
Speaker 1:
No, this is just on a recorder. We were sitting on a light light flew across the windshield. Yeah, and I seen it from this corner, but you seen it right in the front and I didn't see it fully.
Speaker 2:
I just kind of like yeah, I seen him go from the right to the left right across the windshield, top of your windshield. Wow, that's pretty good cemetery. But like Right there.
Speaker 1:
So four minutes, four seconds. Um, that's crazy Okay.
Speaker 2:
It's, it's, it's, it's kind of eerie out here and uh, so dark, I mean you just hear it again.
Speaker 1:
That almost sounded like someone tapping on like a pan. You'll have to. You guys will have to listen to it again. And, tom, well, when you're um, when you listen to this, you'll hear it. I know Debbie will too, and I will be seeing Tom and Debbie um next Tuesday night for haircuts. Well, one haircut, but um, yep, you can definitely hear it. Um, no moon, and don't you find that a little funny, though after the eclipse, there's been no moon. Yeah, did you watch my TikTok? What happened at the campsite?
Speaker 2:
I think so, yeah, I think so, yeah, with the moon going.
Speaker 1:
No, then, like that night, what happened? Probably not, and I'm like caught my breath again. I'm relaxing, all right. So we sometimes forget that we are still recording and we have squirrel moments. That was already on another episode on here about, I don't know, maybe five, six, seven episodes ago.
Speaker 1:
Um, during the eclipse, all the craziness that went on then, um, but yeah, if you guys get a chance, check out Denton Cemetery. It is very close to Tom's house. He lives in Melvindale and that's in Belleville, so I think it's like 20 minutes maybe. But yeah, if you guys go back through and listen, you will hear bells or pot and pan or you know. Again, we don't. A lot of times we don't listen to our recordings or even watch any of our videos or even like sift through the pictures like right after we're done.
Speaker 1:
Right, it's like days or weeks or months after we hear this stuff and we're like, wow, that's another thing too I want to put out there, at least from my experience, and a lot of people in the field will tell you maybe don't look at your evidence or try to go through anything the night of you know, or the day of going out somewhere. Give it some time and then go back. But I will tell you this when we were just at the Masonic Lodge again with Dawn and her group, the Ghost Whispers, that's what I was telling Ron, one of her teammates, because he literally had like taken a picture or something and then it. That's what I was telling Ron, one of her teammates, because he literally had like taken a picture or something and then it was gone. And I was like, dude, you have to screenshot everything, send it to multiple people, send it to someone's email, like you constantly want to have your evidence put out there, because it will be gone.
Speaker 1:
It is unexplainable. I don't know if it's the spirits, I don't know what it is. Technology sometimes can just mess up Whatever. That's just a tip Doing this for as long as we've been doing it. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this. You guys take care. Tune in, we'll be chatting soon.