Murder Probe Clues Exhausted

Murder Probe Clues Exhausted

Treml

;)orter)

A six-week murder investiga-
tion by detectives from five
police agencies has turn'
only a "new" drawing of ^
pect.

Even the most optimistic or
the score of area police offic-
ers working on the Joan E.
Schell murder case now admits
they are without a single sub-
stantial clue.

The stabbed and ravished
body of the attractive 20-year-
old Eastern Michigan Univer-
sity coed was found on the af-
ternoon of July 5 behind a
clump of bushes m a construc-
tion area of Glacier Way near
Earhart Rd. at the northeast
edge of Ann Arbor. A patholo-
gist said Miss Schell had been
stabbed a dozen times and her
throat cut.

Since the very hour the body
was discovered police from all
five agencies involved have
been checking out clues, tips,
leads and bits of assorted, in-
formation on the case.

Most vital of all the tips came
from 18-year-old Susan Kolbe,
who was Miss Schell's room-

-ite at the time of the slay-
.:\g. Mis^ K"]he. who shared an
apartmi ' the victim at
703 Em..^., .a Ypsilanti, told
police she had tried to dissuade
Miss Schell from getting into a

d and black, late-model car
in front of Eastern Michigan's
McKinney Union on the night
of June 30.

Miss Kolbe said Miss Schell,
a Plymouth native, was anxious
to get to Ann Arbor to see a
boy friend, Dale Schultz, who
also was raised in Plymouth.
Schultz, a 19-year-old AWOL
Army private, was working in
a local restaurant and living hi
a University campus area

apartment at the time.

When Miss Schell missed the
last bus to Ann Arbor on June
30 she decided to hitchhike. She
ignored pleas by Miss Kolbe
not to accept the ride from the
' "•e white youths. Her nude
Dody, riddled with stab wounds
was found five days later off
Glacier Way by a construction
worker.

Since that initial report by
Miss Kolbe, police have inter-
viewed a score of persons who
may have been in the vicinity
of the McKinney Union when
Miss Schell accepted her ride
to death. They have talked to
EMU employes, checked out
the victim's Ann Arbor ac-
quaintances and given a lie-
detector test to Schultz.

Hundreds of copies of a
"composite" picture of one of
the youths in the car have been
distributed to police agencies
throughout the state, more than
150 red and black cars have
been checked out and rewards
which may soon total $15,000
have been offered for the ar-
rest and conviction of the
killer.

The picture of Joan Schell as
given by friends and acquaint-
ances was that of a quiet, like-
able girl who was popular with
fellow students and devoted to
her family in Plymouth. She
worked part-time at the student
cafeteria in the McKinney Union
and supervisors there told pol-
ice she was a good employe.

Schultz, picked up by city pol-
ice as an AWOL soldier two
hours after the body was found,
was told of the murder m a
Police Department interroga-
tion room.

"He was pretty shaken by
it," one detective recalled. "He
said he couldn't heheve it. He
'wept."

But police interrogators, un-
fazed by tears, asked military
police to delay their pickup of
Schultz until he could be given
a lie-detector test here. The GI
agreed to the test and the
examination showed he had no
gulty knowledge of the homi-
cide.

Schultz was then released to
military authorities who say the
young soldier is now in an army
stockade.

During the six-week investi-
gation police have seen door
upon door closed as they
checked out each lead. One of
the most frustrating doors was
the failure to find either the
murder weapon—believed to be
a long-bladed hunting knife—or
the large, red burlap bag Miss
Schell was carrying the night
she disappeared.

Sheriff's Department mount-
ed possemen and scores of
policemen on foot have scoured
the Glacier Way area where the
body was found searching for
clues. Neither the murder
weapon, the handbag nor any
thing else pertaining to the
crime was found.

And to further complicate the
probe, authorities say they
have no idea where the murder
was actually committed.

Assistant Prosecutor Thomas
F. Shea, who was on the scene
moments after the body was
found six weeks ago, says Miss
Schell was not killed on Glacier
Way.

"She was murdered in a car
or an apartment and there's a
great deal of blood in that vehi-
cle or dwelling," Shea says.

Ann Arbor police technicians
after conferring with Miss
Kolbe, created a "composite"
of the face 'of the youth seen
getting out of the red and black
car to let Miss Schell get in on

the night of June 30. However
that likeness is now believed to
be only partially accurate.

Upon the sugngestion of Sher-
iff's Department Detective
Ronald Ritter, Miss Kolbe con-
ferred with Ypsilanti Uniformed
Police Sgt. William Stenning
who made a pencil drawing of
the wanted youth.

The new drawing differs in
several respects from the
"composite" and shows the
youth smiling. That drawing
has been distributed to all con-
cerned police agencies. But
police are still waiting for that
first tip from the new drawing.

Authorities, however, have so
far refused to release the draw-
ing for publication.

Even money—the one reliable
pry which loosens lips and
unlocks mysteries—has failed
the police.

Editors of "The Eastern
Echo," the Eastern Michigan
University student newspaper,
in mid-July solicited Ypsilanti
area business firms for pledges
of $5,000 in reward money for
the arrest and conviction of
Miss Schell's slayer. That offer
was soon joined by contribu-
tions of about $2,000 more, and
tomorrow night Ann Arbor's
City Council may boost the
reward fund another $5,000.

City Attorney Peter Forsythe
is scheduled tomorrow t o
advise councilmen concerning
the legality of offering city tax
money for rewards of this type.
If the city attorney finds no
legal stumbling blocks in the
way of the offer, there will be a
total reward of $12,000 awaiting
the tipster who decides to talk
for profit.

And if The Detroit News
includes the Schell murder in
its "secret witness" project, as
is currently rumored, the pay-
off for the informant who iden
tifies the guilty could be as
much as $17,000.

But police have little faith io
the various rewards bringing
out the star witness.

"The $5,000 has been out for
a month and there hasn't been
a nibble," one weary detective
said. "Another couple thousand
won't do it either. It kind o
makes you lose faith in hurnai
greed."

In all the reward offers made
thus far arrangements have
been outlined which will permit
the informant to keep his iden-
tity a secret while still collect-
ing the reward.

Police investigating the
Schell murder have used virtu-
ally every tactic known in an
attempt to crack the case.

Almost immediately after
Miss Schell's body was found
police ordered Miss Kolbe out
of her Emmet St. apartment
and placed her under a 24-hour
police guard. She was secreted
in an apartment house some
distance from Emmet St., and
a police matron and a male
officer remained with her.

Her old apartment was kept
under a close watch by police
and residents of the entire
neighborhood were cautioned to
report suspicious persons loit-
ering in the area.

But the careful police watch
netted nothing and police now
feel the killer of Miss Schell
must havefledthe state
immediately after the slaying.

Although many detectives
from the various police agen-
cies involved are still assigned
virtually full-time to the mur-
der, gradually officers are
being diverted to other duties
as the trail of the killer of Joan
Schell becomes colder and
older and more vague.