Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

The Michigan Murders: Ypsilanti Ripper (John Norman Collins) Part III

Trial

The trial of John Norman Collins for the murder of Karen Sue Beineman began in the Washtenaw County Court Building on June 2, 1970. He was tried in Ann Arbor, before Judge John Conlin.

Initial jury selection began on this date, and would continue until July 9. Several motions by the defense counsel throughout the jury selection process that the trial should be moved to a jurisdiction outside of Washtenaw County were rejected by Judge John Conlin, who ruled on June 29 that the 14 members of the jury selected from Ann Arbor by this date and considered satisfactory by both counsels would serve as jurors throughout the trial. Upon recommendation from his lawyers, Collins chose not to testify in his own defense.

The prosecutors at Collins' trial, William Delhey and Booker Williams, opted to charge Collins only with the murder of Karen Sue Beineman, with the state contending that she had been murdered by Collins in the basement of the Leik household. In his opening statement to the jury on July 20, Delhey outlined the prosecution's contention that the evidence to be presented would form a clear pattern indicating that Collins had been in the company of Karen Sue Beineman at the time she was last seen alive by Mrs. Joan Goshe and her assistant; that he had taken her to the home of his own uncle, where he had tortured and beaten the girl before strangling her to death at this location; and that he had then discarded her body, before attempting to persuade his roommate to provide him with a false alibi.

The two primary questions before the jury, Delhey stated, would be the accuracy of eyewitnesses who would be called to testify and, ultimately, whether the more than 500 hair samples found upon Beineman's panties matched the hair clippings later recovered from the basement of Collins' uncle. Delhey also stated the prosecution's intent to prove that Collins had had sole access to his uncle's home and basement on the afternoon of Beineman's disappearance, and although he had made concerted efforts to remove physical evidence from the crime scene, blood samples recovered from this location were a match for the blood type of the victim. Delhey formally closed his opening statement to the jury by requesting they return a verdict of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.

The defense contended that although the murder of Beineman was a "vicious, sadistic attack" which had degraded her body "almost beyond human comprehension," the prosecution's case that Collins was the perpetrator of the crime was a weak one at best. Defense attorneys Neil Fink and Joseph Louisell, in their opening statement, labeled the eyewitnesses' identification of both Collins and his motorcycle as flawed and unreliable, and stated their intentions to introduce several witnesses who would provide an alibi for their client in the early afternoon hours the prosecution contended Karen Sue Beineman had been abducted and murdered. Collins' attorneys also alleged these alibi witnesses had been subjected to police harassment, that the tests conducted upon the hair samples found upon Beineman's panties were unreliable, and that Collins' uncle, Sgt. David Leik, had refused to divulge the blood type(s) of his family to defense attorneys.

Witness testimony

Formal witness testimony began on July 20, 1970. The first two witnesses to testify were Beineman's two roommates; each of whom discussed Beineman's character, and her movements on the day of her disappearance. These two witnesses were followed by the individual who had found her body on July 26, and the medical examiner called to the crime scene, Dr. Craig Barlow. Barlow testified as to the fact that although Beineman had been deceased for almost 72 hours, her body had only lain in the location where she was found for 24 hours before discovery.

The following day, Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas Harvey testified as to the discovery of Beineman's body, her subsequent autopsy, and his obtaining an updated composite drawing of the suspect with whom Beineman had last been seen alive from Mrs. Joan Goshe and her assistant, Patricia Spaulding. Both women had agreed this composite drawing was accurate, and only disagreed as to the structure of the suspect's chin. Furthermore, Goshe had identified a photograph shown to her of Collins as being the man she had seen with Beineman.