A 1960's Murder

    I traveled around for about a year after a tour in the army when I decided to get a job and settle down for a while , I went to work as a mechanic for a farm implement company and moved into an apartment. A friend needed a place to stay and I allowed him to stay with me for the summer, a friend of his (Bob B.) was working at the Mitchell farm as a gardener and was in an affair with Bill Mitchells wife. Bill Mitchell is owner of the Mitchell Bentley Corporation the largest employer in Shiawassee co. Mi. his personal wealth was estimated at over $250,000,000 in 1994. About a month after my friend (Harold M.) moved in his friend (Bob) started coming around and they started planing to kill Bill Mitchell. I didn't take them seriously until they had brought a guy in and introduced him as little Joe. Little Joe turned out to be Joe Kerns, A man that had just got out of prison in Tennessee and was to be the hit man to kill Mr. Mitchell. I tried my best to talk them out of it but they was determined to go ahead with it. Planing it right down to a time, place and exactly how they intended to do it. Finally I told them that I felt that because I knew all about it and couldn't stop them that I didn't have any choice but to call Mr. Mitchell and warn him, they refused to believe that I would call him and continued setting it all up in my presence. I called Mr. Mitchell the morning of the day it was set up for and told him that he would be getting a phone call to meet someone and not to go. Mitchell showed up at my door about an hour later with two other men and wanted all the details. I told him the entire story, he told me to not say anything to anyone else about it, thanked me and left. Three days later Harold M. came to the apartment looking like he had been severely beaten with one hand bandaged up and bandages on his chest. He said that two guys showed up at the place that Mitchell was supposed to meet them with guns and took them out to the farm where Bill and the two guys beat them up and forced them to drink large amounts of Gin and made him 'Harold' sign a statement that Mrs. Mitchell (*) wanted them to kill Bill for the insurance money, Harold then said Mr. Mitchell gave him $4,500 to leave the state on and if he came back to Mi. he would be charged with attempted murder and that they killed little Joe and dumped his body in the river out at the Boelter farm and that they did something with Bob but he didn't know what and on the way back from dumping little Joe's body they dumped him (Harold) in a ditch and someone took him up to the hospital and the Dr. said that he must have laid with his hand under his chest for some time that it fused to his chest from the huge amount of alcohol he had in him.
     (*) Mrs. Mitchell's name was never mentioned at anytime by Bob or Harold and I'm positive she had no idea of what they was up to but Mr. Mitchell had her committed to a mental institution for 4 years for the affair she had with the gardener.
     Over the next several years I tried finding out what had happened to Joe Kerns and Bob B. when in 1968 I heard that there was a skull on a post by the river on the Boelter farm, I called the state police about it and they told me to call the county sheriffs dept. The sheriffs dept said they would look into it. I didn't hear anything from the sheriffs dept. when in 1987 I called the F.B.I. again I was told to call the local sheriffs dept. James Lajoy was sheriff then, I told him the F.B.I. told me to call him and he said he had heard something about it and thought it was just a rumor. In 1991 the subject came up again, I will explain this when I get to it as it ties into later events.
     How ironic that a murder that happened in 1963 'Edger Evens' a white southerner kills a black man and 31 years later he is finally sent to prison for it. Yet the Norths hatred and revenge against the south (civil war) goes on to this day where as a wealthy white northerner can murder a white southerner and never even be questioned about it.
    In 1964 a friend from the service that was working with the ATF got in touch with me and asked me to see if I could get any information on a local judge named Robert Schultz who was involved in illegal weapons sales and gave me a local contact, a sport store owner that would sell me guns 'wholesale' I started buying guns from the sport store and selling them to Judge Schultz who was in turn selling them to a special deputy that owned a machine shop in a near-by town, this went on for several years when I met the man that worked as the foreman in the machine shop who was either a ATF agent or a paid informant at that time 'Charles Chandler' (pg.20) who wanted to be called Ernie. I went to a machine shop in Jackson Mi. several times with Ernie to deliver the parts that was made in the machine shop, under government contract, along with the guns that was being bought by the special deputy that owned the shop. I found out the guns were being taken to New Jersey and sold on the black market in black neighbor hoods. I refused to buy up anymore guns after that and told my contact where the guns were being delivered to in Jackson and the names of several people that I had met that was involved from several states. They couldn't bust the judge for the guns or several other items he was dealing in because of some of the people involved and to maintain the cover of several of the agents in different states so they got him on several counts of embezzlement that had come to light. My friend then asked me if I would be interested in meeting some people from Detroit that would be investigating (pg.20) Ernie in drug cases that involved several Doctors, motels and businesses around the country, this sounded exciting to me so I went for it. I became friends with several really great people who was working in law enforcement at state and federal levels. Very sincere in there efforts to get several people that was dealing large amounts of heroin to high school kids. In the mean time Ernie was using my name in some of his dealings which helped me infiltrate some pretty rotten dealers as well as getting info on where he was getting huge amounts of prescription drugs and a major heroin dealer in my home-town that was responsible for at least three overdose deaths. (^) By 1969 I had introduced a undercover agent to the heroin dealer, Bradly (Tank) Toby, (pg.17) he got enough on him to send him to prison but he got out after serving 6 mos. on a technicality. This was a result of the gov. being involved in the bust that the local law had to put him in prison, there was too many well known people involved with him that they couldn't have him ratting on. (e-mail) From 69 thru 72 I'm in and out of state a lot, when I'm around my home town the chief of police calls on me to have me come in and identify different drugs that come in off the streets. Quit often I would take pot in to be tested for other drugs in it. Tank was well known for selling smack weed. lacing pot with heroin.
    (^) 1965 to 1969 I was working at a Chrysler dealership when I took a 1968 Imperial for a pre-delivery test drive. A lady In a Oldsmobile pulled out in front of me, I hit her almost head-on, I was injured enough to have an ambulance take me to the hospital and the Imperial was collapsed in the center, directly under the drivers seat. 1968 was the first year Chrysler came up with the uni-body design. On all the muscle cars, road runners, Barracudas etc. the glove box would come open every time I floored it. The Hemis and six packs would not only pop the glove box open it would crack the windshield. My injuries resulted in my not being able to work in a garage anymore. At this time General Motors was looking for people to fill skilled trades positions. I applied for a job under the understanding that after a 90 day period, I could take a test, 76% to pass, and get the job I applied for, fork-lift repair. After 91 days of trying to maintain any degree of sanity running a palm press, I took the test for fork lift repair. I passed at 87% another guy passed at 84% and got the job because he had 2 days more seniority then I. A fact that was never mentioned when I was assured the job if I passed the test. My next ordeal with the unions was in 1982 when I went to work for Complete Auto Carriers. The yard was at the Chevrolet Truck assembly plant, I loved the job and the pay was unbelievable. I was there 60 days when I was called to the office to sign the papers for the union, Teamsters. This is when they tell you that it is a closed shop, meaning you have to join the union or you can't work there. This is also when I called every-one in hearing distance a bunch of commie bastards and left, I get to the gate and the guards ask me to wait a minute, the union steward waned to talk to me. He cried about how much G.M. had invested in me and how wonderful the union was etc. I told him my father was a teamster, He worked a team of Morgans. That's my idea of a teamster and it sure as hell don't have anything to do with having to join any commie outfit to work. after a couple more attempts of trying to get me to see the light, he told the gestapo to let me go.
    (23) In 71, I bought a Harley, chopped it (Pics) and traveled around working as a free lance NARC getting paid by local agencies. The officers would all pitch in and help with money and what-ever else I needed to set up people that was dealing in drugs and guns. In 73, I was asked if I would be interested in learning to drive over-the road trucks and go to work for a major trucking company that was contracted to the gov. to haul explosives, getting information as to where some missiles and explosives were going that was coming up missing from deliveries and safe havens. They set me up in a truck-driving school in Detroit, verified my experience and got me a job in the flat-bed division with a company called Tri-State in Joplin Mo. I liked the job very much as I got to go to a lot of interesting places, military bases etc. Because I wasn't a real agent or have any legal connection with any police or gov. agency I couldn't expect any protection from any-one and soon learned that I was way out of my league in trying to infiltrate any big time gov. contractors. 1973 & 1974, I hiked around Mexico with a friend, from Mexico we went to Florida for a few years to a cosmetology school. Traveling has always been my true love.
   In 74, I was contacted by some people in Florida and set up some small time dealers and some not so small time people that ended up with Florida and gov. agents busting a large credit card ring. A friend from my home town was mixed up with these people and was murdered on one of the Keys, This hit me pretty hard making me want to get away from that line of work for a while. A mo. or so later I enrolled in Cosmetology school for 19 mos. Went back several years later and got a license. In 76, I traveled around the states and Mexico for a while and did some work with the AZ. state police then went to Galveston island TX. and started a mobile mechanics business. I did pretty well at it but had to move when I found out I couldn't live on an island for any length of time. In 1979 I went back to my home town and several people that I had worked with years earlier asked me to get reacquainted with Ernie again. (pg.20) Ernie was living in the same town yet but was now living in the Doctors house that he was getting prescription drugs from and dealing them out of the Dr's. house. About 10 years later Tank Toby is getting taxpayers money to run the local scared straight program through the sheriffs department. Which was actually a set-up he had going with sheriff LaJoye giving him easy access to deal more Heroin. Ernieis now living in another one of the good Doctors houses giving parties and supplying some of the city and county cops, fireman, judge Lostraccos wife, at least one lawyer that I know of and several other city and county workers with pills and cocaine.
   I brought my contacts up to date on him which ended up with the doctor losing his license and Ernie having to move. Later on (1979) I was asked to go back to Florida and get in contact with several people from my home town that was setting up a major cocaine deal with some people in Colombia. I stayed in contact with the people I was to get the information on. One had bought a bar to raise money for the Colombian deal and another was running a import export business. These were people I knew and knew some of there families, I also knew that they were good people doing bad things that I wasn't above doing myself. I also knew that they felt much the same way as I did on not dealing with minors in any way and as long as they weren't hurting any-one but themselves I felt it wasn't any of my business and didn't relay any information about them. Not long after that they got busted in Cuban waters coming back from Colombia in a large boat loaded with cocaine and put in a Cuban jail. Fortunately they had some powerful backers that managed to get a state Senator to go to Cuba and negotiate there release.
Because I was never actually a cop or registered with any law-enforcement agencies word got around the state police agencies on how I operated and got paid, they liked the degree of protection it offered there officers and I was free to use my own discretion as to what I did and to who I did it to. The first part of the 80's I traveled around the states and Canada driving trucks and rental cars buying and selling, making just enough money to keep me on the road and smoking the best medication available.
    In 86 I decided I wanted to do something worth while with my life and started a business to raise money for a project I had come across. A Sheriff in Bad Axe Michigan had a pet project for kids he called Safetyville. His County didn't have the funds for the size of the village he dreamt about but he put a program together that I thought was outstanding, ie, a child-size city for teaching K through 2nd. graders how to go to and from school safely. I was determined to build the city using his ideas and lessons in teaching kids safety that he would have done himself had he had the time and money. (cont.,pg.15)