Weary Detectives Stare At Doll Found On Fence

Weary Detectives StareAt Doll Found On Fence

By William B. Treml

(News Police Reporter)

A score of Sheriff's Depart-
ment detectives, disheartened
and weary from struggling
through hundreds of dead-end
leads in the Dawn Basom mur-
der case, t!-1 ni-.rning stared
at a doll and ed.

The mud-splattered doll, clad
only in a tattered shirt, was
found last night hanging on a
barbed wire fence on Cherry
Hill Rd, in Superior Township-
within four miles of the loca-
tions of four of the last five
murder victims.

Douglas J. Fulton, columnist
for The News, found the doll
last night while en route to a
nursery with his family. Fulton
took a picture of the doll and
notified Undersheriff Harold J.
Owings Jr.

The torn shirt of the doll was
snagged on a barb of the fence
which r11"'- ^'"n" Cherry Hill
Rd., e;; 'cct Rd., in
Superior Tuv»ii;>iiip. That loca-
tion is only IVs miles from the
spot where the body of 19-year-
olcl Mary Fleszar was found in
1967 un^ ""^h'n three miles of
thi the body of 13-
yeai-um i/uini Basom was dis-
covered Wednesday morning.

"This is too much of a coinci-

cnce to be taken lightly,"
'• 'sheriff Owings said this
ig. "It's more than a sick
" ': • ::"„ ' ' i»me sig-

I'he undershcriff immediately
.spatched a scout car to Cher-
ry Hill Rd. to pick up the doll
and a search party is scheduled

'"•• ••"•••• "'here it was

The doll was the major
development in the sprawling
investigation which has seen
100 police officers from five
agencies thrown into a murder
investigation which is rapidly
reaching the frantic stage.

Ann Arbor Police Chief Wal-
ter E. KrasnyordcJeda
policewoman and a malexletec-

•c to check reports that

nversity of Michigan coeds

' c'mselves in the
^ ii\ •.••••• ;ilest killing. Thfe
policewoman has been instruct-
ed speficifically to contact a
19-year-old nursing student from ,
Portland, Me., who has quoted
as saying she was carrying a
switch-blade knife given to her
boy friend.

The woman also said a fra-
ternity on the U-M campus ^
held a "sale" of tear gas
• , .. .-ly and fi number
, based the weap-

i^i. Both switch blades and gas \

-vices are illegal under Mich- y
•••• '••"•• -'nd a char" •' '• 'rry- ^
caled weyi i be ^
police.

. »,., .pc of panic gets peo-
ple hurt," Chief Krasny said.
"Things are bad enough now
without inexperienced civilians
taking lethal weapons into their
h;.-".

...:' campus at
; i g a n and the ^
.lichigan are feel- ^
:,,, the mounting pressure from ;

,;c recent murders. They have
organized a "buddy system" a
under which they walk in pairs ^
or threes when going to and

from University buildings after
dark. Hitchhiking, a common
practice at the U-M, has
decreased for coeds and has
virtually disappeared at East-
ern Michigan.

Investigators assigned to the
case continue to check the flood
of leads coming into the vari-
ous departments. Few are sub-
stantial.

Sheriff Douglas J. Harvey
has ordered his night patrols to
continue checking back roads
and "lovers lanes" and to turn
license numbers and names
over to detectives.

One pattern which is en
ing from the vast murder prubc
appears to be the fact that the
slayer in at least two and possi-
bly three of the cases took his
vu-H'in to an abandoned cellar.

dy of Joan Schell was
ludLn- m such a cellar which
had temperatures of between 30
and 40 degrees for several days
after she was killed, investiga-
tors haVe revealed. Miss Fle-
zar also may have been hidden

li T battered body was
dumped on a private dump in
Superior Township in 1967.

Detectives are attempting ttf
locate persons who may knowt
the whereabouts of personalj|
belongings missing from three^
of the bodies. Mary L. Mixer^
the 23-year-old U-M Law Schoolj
student, was the only one of thel
five victims whose identifica-j
tion papers were lei' '\, ^

Officers believe ;' ; i. tiling
was separate from the othcrj
four and was committed by a
person not connected with the
Fleszar - Schell-Skelton-Basom
' licides. ^

Sheriff Harvey says his men'
are continuing to concentrate
all efforts around the burned-
out farm house on LeForge Rd.
where it is believed Dawn
Basom was murdered. Glass
found in her shoes matches
glass fragments found in the
cellar of the old house.

But other than that, detec-
tives say they face an inves-
tigative blank wall.

The Doll On The Fence