Expert: Dog Hair Also Links Oakland Child Killer Victims
DETROIT (Talk Radio 1270) Metro Detroit's most notorious criminal -- the Oakland County Child Killer -- is another step closer to being found, thanks to DNA analysis.
And a little hair of the dog could factor in.
Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper announced Tuesday the FBI found that a hair left on two of the four victims came from the same person. Four children – Mark Stebbins, 12; Jill Robinson, 12; Kristine Mihelich, 10; and Timothy King, 11 – were kidnapped and found dead between 1976 and 1977.
Cooper said the unknown person whose hair was found had to be an associate of 70-year-old Arch Edward Sloan, the owner of a 1966 Pontiac Bonneville -- because a third hair matching the two victims was found in the car. All of the children were abducted in the 1970s on the Woodward Corridor, between Ferndale and Birmingham, held for days, meticulously cleaned then dumped somewhere outdoors.
Sloane, who's in jail on two life sentences in unrelated sex assault cases, will reportedly not cooperate with police.
"We came up with consistency in animal hairs," she said, adding, "I didn't have at that time the (human) hairs ... you are reporting on. I was not aware they had those hairs."
The hairs were found as part of a task force that reactivated the case in 2005 and started re-testing evidence.
Howenstine said the earlier animal hairs found on two victims were "microscopically similar," however no link was ever discovered between the animal and anyone's home or vehicle.
Attorney Paul Hughes asked Howenstine on the Langton show: "Nobody brought up the fact they had human hairs that could be examined?"
"No," Howenstine said. "I don't know what has transpired in the last year and a half, but I wasn't aware of anything additional until I read it (in the media)."
