Collins Found Guilty

By William B. Treml
(News Police Reporter) John Norman Collins is now a convicted killer.
As a summer rain fell outside and flashes of lightning flickered across the gray August sky, a Circuit Court jury of six men and six women this morning completed their five-day ordeal of deliberation by returning a verdict of guilty.
The dramatic climax to the longest criminal case in the history of Washtenaw County came abruptly at 9:32 a.m. when Jury Foreman William B. Billmeier stood in the jury box and told Court Clerk Mrs. Ruth Walch: "We find the defendant guilty as charged.'
Those seven words meant Collins, the poker-faced 23-year-old college senior who has waited more than a year to be judged, has been convicted of murdering Karen Sue Beineman.
Those words meant the jury believed two prosecution witnesses when they said it was Collins they saw ridel off on a motorcycle with Miss Beineman on the day of her death in July, 1969, and that they accepted the contention of Prosecutor William F. Delhey that human head hair can be scientifically matched.
Conversely, the verdict meant the jurors rejected Chief Defense Counsel Joseph W. Louisell's “alibi” witnesses, and the testimony by scientists who said hair cannot be matched.
Apparently the jurors had already reached a verdict late yesterday afternoon when they asked Judge John W. Conlin to excuse them from evening deliberations. The knock on the deliberations room door and the word that a verdict had been reached came only moments after they entered the room at 8:30 a.m. today. They had had the case more than 100 hours at that point and had deliberated a total of 27 hours over 3 days. In that time they had heard testimony given in the trial read to them for more than six hours.
Foreman Billmeier, nervous and pale, stumbled over the announced verdict as Mrs. Walch and the jammed courtroom waited this morning. Before the clerk could complete her questions: "Members of the jury have you reached a verdict? Who speaks for you?” Billmeier, an engineer who lives at 1459 Covington Dr., said the word "guilty", then stopped and spoke the complete sentence.
When Billmeier sat down, Mrs. Walch polled the jury:
“Was that and is this your verdict?” The question was asked 12 times.
Most of the jurors answered simply, “Yes." Two said firmly, "Yes, it is.”
The finding of guilty of murder in the first degree failed to stir Collins.. He sat beside Defense Counsel Neil H. Fink, pale, gaunt, unsmiling. When the word "guilty” was pronounced from the jury box not a flicker of emotion passed over his face. He stared steadily at Billmeier, then at Judge Conlin. But the frozen mask of the noncommitted, which he has worn through the long months, never broke.
His mother, Mrs. Loretta
Collins, seated with her family in a front row of the courtroom, stiffened but did not weep until moments later when she fled the courtroom through the prisoner entrance her son has used since last June.
Judge Conlin, his voice tired and strained, thanked the jury for its diligence. He called the verdict "a very considered judgment for a decision." Before they left the County Building, the judge told the jury they were free to talk to newsmen if they wished but he was recommending that they speak with no one about their deliberations.
The judge remanded Collins, in the tradition of American law "to the custody of the sheriff” and set a sentencing date of Aug. 28. When he noted there would be a pre-sentence report required, Defense Counsel Fink rose and said: “The defendant is not going to talk to anyone except to give his name and his Prosecutor William F. Delhey said this morning at a news conference he is under a court order not to discuss at this time any possible connection John Norman Collins may have with the slayings of six young women in this area.
Delhey told of the court order a short time after Collins was convicted by a Circuit Court jury of the strangulation of Karen Sue Beineman last summer.
The prosecutor said he has been prohibited by an order from Judge John W. Conlin from
address.”
“Of course that's his privilege,” Judge Conlin said.
Persons who served on the trial jury besides Bellmeier included Mrs. Alice Vining of 1503 Morton Ave., wife of a criminal law professor at the University; Mrs. Rose Rizki of 1230 Ardmoor Ave., a University researcher whose husband is a zoology professor at the U-M; Mrs. Esther E. Travis of 6355 Seven Mile Rd., Salem Township, a housewife and a clerk for a home for the aged; Clifford Fishbeck of 4080 Berry Rd., Superior Township, a retired engineer for the Detroit Edison Co.; and Donald S. Burns of 2184 Ayrshire Rd., Ann Arbor Township, a systems analyst for the Ford Motor Co.
Other jurors: Mrs. Patra Terry of 1731 Saunders Crescent, a housewife; James Burns of 3290 Charring Cross, an environmental expert; Morton Newhouse of 91 Lamay St., Ypsilanti Tonwship, a factory worker;
publicly discussing Collins' possible connection with other murders until after the defendant is sentenced Aug. 28. On that date the judge will impose the mandatory life sentence given in first degree murder convictions.
Delhey credited Eastern Michigan University Security Patrolman Larry Mathison with providing the key tip which brought Collins' ultimate arrest on the murder charge. It was Mathison who reported seeing Collins on a blue motorcycle talking to a girl near the EMU campus on
Robert O. Heinrichs, of 100 Mason Ave., also an engineer; Mrs. Doris Green of 1719 Sanford Pl., a school teacher; and Mrs. Trenna B. Edmonson of 1434 Roxbury Rd., wife of a bio-engineer at the University.
The jurors range in age from 28 to 71 and nine had college degrees or some college training,
The two persons who were removed from the jury by lot be. fore deliberations began were Paul Hueter of 2604 Towner Blvd., a Ford Motor Co. engineer, and Mrs. Elizabeth Osborn of 1330 Ardmoor Ave., a housewife whose husband is a University professor. Hueter was seated June 8 and Mrs. Osborn had been a juror since July 8. They were drawn off the panel to reduce the jury from 14 to the 12 as stipulated by law.
When Collins was hustled out! of the County Building, he was surrounded by six Sheriff's Department officers. He was quick
July 23, 1969, the day Miss Beineman disappeared.
The prosecutor said he did not believe the jury which convicted Collins was influenced by pre-trial publicity. He said while he did not "agree" with all newspaper stories on the case, he felt the coverage as a whole was fair. He praised Chief Defense Counsel Joseph W. Louisell and his assistant Neil H. Fink for their efforts and said Judge Conlin performed "outstandingly" on the bench during the long trial.

ly placed in a van truck and driven back to his County Jail cell.
Moments later, Mrs. Collins, accompanied by her family and Father Patrick Jackson of St. Thomas Catholic Church, hurried out of the basement prisoner entrance to the County Building, entered a car and was driven off by the priest. Mrs. Collins, weeping and head down, would say nothing to newsmen. On Aug. 28 her son will be sentenced to a life term in Southern Michigan Prison at Jackson. A life sentence for first degree murder is mandatory in Michigan.
But it could be months or years before the final appeal of the jury's finding is exhausted. Defense Counsel Fink, shaken by the verdict and pale from recurring stomach trouble, was still soft-spoken and polite as he told newsmen an appeal of the verdict is "automatic.” Fink had been half of the defense team headed by Chief Defense Counsel Joseph W. Louisell. But it was for Fink to stand and wait alone five days for the verdict. Louisell returned to his Detroit law office the day the jury received the case. He had not returned to Ann Arbor.
“There was so much unspoken evidence,” the lithe, small statured Fink said. “The identification was so bad, so prejudiced and biased. How can you show a picture of a person and ask him if that isn't the person he saw? Of course we'll carry this up."
Fink said there "obviously” were several on the jury who believed Collins innocent.
"The others wore them down, certainly,” he said. “They felt John was innocent, they felt the case had not been proved. We feel it has not been.”
The defense counsel had praise for Judge Conlin, who, he said, "had a very difficult job, a very awesome one." He said except for what he felt were legal errors, the judge did a competent job in presiding over the long case.
Fink also said he felt Collins was being tried not only for the Beineman murder. He was being tried for all seven murders. There was prejudice. And of course the identification outside the wig shop was tainted by showing the pictures to the witnesses,” he said.
While Fink files his appeals for Collins, the Eastern Michigan University senior will be in Southern Michigan Prison beginning his life sentence.
This morning's guilty verdict came so suddenly, it caught almost everyone by surprise. Yesterday the jury had twice told Conlin they believed there was a "reasonable probability" that! they could reach a verdict after he had asked them about their progress.
The “reasonable probability"| wording used by the judge and jury at noon yesterday had raised hopes that a verdict might be returned early in the afternoon.
But that hope faded as the long afternoon wore on, only to be revived and finally blossom into the decision returned this morning.