Children of the Snow: Michigan’s Pedophile Child Killer and Pornography Ring

The Oakland County Child Killings (OCCK) in Michigan were wintertime murders of at least two boys and two girls in the suburbs of Detroit over a period of 13 months between 1976 and 1977. The victims: Mark Stebbins, 12; Jill Robinson, 12; Kristine Mihelich, 10; and Timothy King, 11. They are also known as “the children of the snow.” Each were kidnapped and held from four to 19 days before being killed.

At present, the leading suspects are a crew of interconnected flying-monkey homosexual pederasts: Christopher Busch, Gregory Greene, Vince Gunnels, Ted Lambrogine and Archibald Sloan.

Busch first appeared on the OCCK investigators’ radar in 1977 during the interrogation of a pedophile named Gregory Greene, Busch’s close friend and frequent partner in crime. Detectives were interviewing Greene regarding pedophilia activity at Brother Paul’s Children’s Mission on nearby North Fox Island. Both Greene and Busch would eventually face charges in the children’s mission case. We will deal with the North Fox Island pedo ring at the back end of this post.

Michigan State Police reports provide an extensive history of Greene’s violent pederast convictions in California, including one case in which he thought the boy was dead and dropped him off at a hospital. Fortunately, the boy lived. After he served his jail term in California, Greene returned to his home town of Flint, Michigan, where he met Busch and became his flying monkey.

During his interview, Greene reportedly told investigators Busch had confessed to the murder of Mark Stebbins, generally believed to be the OCCK’s first victim. Then, on Jan. 28, 1977, Busch himself stated that Greene and he planned to have one of them get a day job and the other a night job so that they could have someone present at all times with a potential future victim. Busch did not answer the question when the police asked him what they would do when they were finished with a child.

In actuality, it was Greene who most resembles eyewitness composite sketches. It’s quite obvious these were the killers, or at minimum the abductors.

Busch further described three locations where he abducted up young boys in the past. These locations are where Mark Stebbins, Jill Robinson and Kristine Mihelich were abducted. At the time of Busch’s interview, Tim King had not yet met his fate.

• 9 Mile and Woodward are in Ferndale
• In Royal Oak near 13 Mile Road and Woodward
• In the area of 12 Mile and Greenfield Road; more specifically, Hartfield’s Bowling Alley and the 7-11 party store located directly across the street

There was a very active pedophile ring on Cass Avenue in Detroit that supplied young children to Oakland County and Fox Island abusers. If these abusers were using other people to pick up the children, it is possible that Christopher Busch and Gregory Greene were procurers as well as a active participants.

This is where things get dicey. Busch was the son of H. Lee Busch, a General Motors vice president, who died at the age of 90 in 2002. In his document called a “A Father’s Story,” Barry King, father of young murdered Timmy, wrote:

Richard Lawson, a convicted murderer and pedophile activist in the Detroit Cass Avenue Corridor, wrote me a letter and asked for a meeting to discuss the OCCK case. Dave Binkley of my law firm agreed to visit with him. Lawson advised Binkley that his associate Bobby Moore, used to take young boys to visit with H. Lee Busch, the father of Christopher Busch.

To verify Busch’s involvement in the OCCK crimes, he was given a polygraph by Ralph Cabot, a Michigan State Police examiner who, according to The Detroit Free Press, possessed a reputation for shoddy work. Busch passed the polygraph, as did Gregory Greene, and at that point the depraved duo were removed from the short list of suspects.

According to Barry King, almost two years after he filed suit to review the Oct. 28, 2008, search warrant on the Busch residence, the 48th District Court gave him access to its search warrant file. The search warrant affidavit, prepared by the Oakland County Prosecutor and signed by the Michigan State Police, disclosed that three experienced polygraphers concluded that Busch either failed or did not pass the Jan. 28, 1977, lie detector test. Yet, the Oakland County Prosecutor publicly stated in February 1977 that Busch passed the test.

In 2008, the Oakland County Prosecutor refused to release the conclusions of three subsequent polygraphers, who arrived at contrary opinions after reading the same test results.

MSP reports indicate that Kym Worthy, the Wayne County Prosecutor, was considering a grand jury on Oct. 15, 2008. The entry states that she wanted to examine several redacted names and “Cabot.” Ralph Cabot was the Genesee County polygrapher who examined Christopher Busch on Jan. 27, 1977. The grand jury did not indict anyone and was terminated after several extensions.

But Busch was still not off the hook on sex crime charges. Incredibly. his sidekick, Gregory Greene, was held on $75,000 bail and was ultimately given a life sentence. He died of a “heart attack” in his cell at the age of 45. Busch’s bail had originally been set at $75,000, but on his booking sheet that sum had been penciled out and $1,000 written in its place.

Busch then pled guilty to four child sex criminal cases without spending a day in jail. The Michigan State Police report also indicated that he was active at North Fox Island. The report made reference to Christopher Busch having a suitcase of pornographic photographs on North Fox Island. He was not indicted for his possession of these pictures.

One month after Busch was released, Tim King was abducted and murdered in March 1977. This was the last known OCCK murder.

Busch had access to a secluded family cabin on Ess Lake. During the angst-ridden six days Tim King was missing, a neighbor, aware of Busch’s history of pedophilia, called the police to report that Busch was cavorting at the cabin with minors. Although such circumstances would likely have been a violation of the terms of Busch’s probation on the earlier sex charges, there is no evidence law enforcement investigated the tip.

The Busch family owned a white Welsh terrier. White animal hairs were reportedly found on the clothes of all four OCCK victims.

On Nov. 20, 1978, Busch was found dead at age 27 in his family’s mansion in Bloomfield Hills. There was one bullet hole between his eyes. Everything screamed set up and murder, not suicide. Busch purportedly shot himself in the head with a rifle, and yet when found he was wrapped tightly in a blanket. There was lack of measurable gunshot residue on the hands.

There were several items present that seemed staged. Ligatures were placed sloppily on the floor of what otherwise was a clean room. There were shotgun shells of the same caliber that killed Jill Robinson.

And last but not least, a diabolical hand-drawn picture of a screaming child was hanging on the wall. The boy has a striking resemblance to the first victim, Mark Stebbins. Chillingly, the boy in the drawing has been captured mid-scream, his face contorted in terror, his hood drawn up as Mark Stebbins’ had been when his sexually defiled body was dumped in a snow-covered parking lot two years earlier.

It seems beyond the pale that Busch would just leave this on the wall. His parents were in Europe, but the maid was coming that morning for housecleaning. The Stebbins case was highly publicized, and his image was well known. We believe it was planted there by a hit team.

Even though Busch had been cleared as a suspect in the Stebbins murder case on Jan. 28, 1977, the OCCK Task Force was called to help process the scene, which was quickly called a suicide. Then, killing multiple birds with one stone, both Oakland County and the original Task Force essentially disbanded on Dec. 15, 1978, three weeks after Busch’s death.

Author Anthony Karrick was writing a book claiming that Busch has been murdered by other OCCK perpetrators because had become too sloppy and a liability. Karrick suddenly died before the book was completed.

Years later, other details emerged from investigative reporters and the efforts of the King family. The most intriguing evidence against Busch, however, is a hair found on victim Kristine Mihelich; the strand was recently revealed to be a mitochondrial DNA match to one Vincent James Gunnels, age 16 at the time of the OCCK crimes.

Gunnels was one of the boys Busch was convicted of molesting. Was Gunnel’s hair left on Kristine’s clothing by secondary transfer? Gunnels, then in prison on sex crimes, reportedly told investigators he was in Busch’s car “hundreds” of times.

Or was the hair’s transference more direct? Using victims to procure additional prey is a classic pedophile tactic employed most famously by Houston serial killer Dean Corll, who murdered in conjunction with his sodomy victim-turned-apprentice Elmer Wayne Henley.

The other aspect is that various pederasts were raping and abusing their captives, but may or may not be involved in the act of murder. To make a murder or pederast ring work, all flying monkeys involved had to get dirty, even if it meant just driving the child to another location, watching over them, or participating in the sexual abuse. That way, all sink or swim together. This is really the key to all compromised activity that we cover on our pages. There is a very good probability that powerful pederasts also participated in the sex abuse activity, thus explaining why investigations were derailed.

Gunnels was polygraphed on July 30, 2009, and was asked three specific questions regarding the Child Killing investigation. Due to his DNA being discovered on Kristine Mihelich, he was asked the following:

1. Did you participate in any way in the killing of Kristine Mihelich?

2. Do you know for sure who killed Kristine Mihelich?

3. Did you have any physical contact with Kristine Mihelich?

Lt. Dykstra, after reviewing the three separate charts in the polygraph, concluded that Mr. Gunnels completely failed all aspects of said examination.

Busch was clearly not averse to operating with a partner, as evidenced by his friendship with Greene and his involvement in the Brother Paul’s pedophile ring. Fellow molesters were clearly his pals of choice. And in the days before the Darknet, where was the best place to find fellow pederasts? Lurking around children, of course.

Arch Sloan was first identified to the King family on July 17, 2012, when the Oakland County Prosecutor publicly requested information on his possible involvement in the murders. The Task Force had obtained DNA evidence indicating the similarities between hairs found on Mark Stebbins, the first victim, Tim King and a hair found in the car of Sloan. However, the DNA match was not to Sloan but apparently some passenger in his car. Busch and Sloane were operating in the same area at the same time and stalking the same type of children. It’s likely their victim-strewn paths crossed at one time or another.

Murder suspect Richard Lawson advised the investigators that his friend, Bobby Moore, stated one Ted Lamborgine had identified a picture of Tim King naked in one of Moore’s photo albums. In September 2005, Lamborgine was polygraphed and also failed the examination regarding his involvement in the OCCK case.

Bobby Moore was instrumental in boy recruitment and general degeneracy. He had a bike shop in the Cass corridor, with a basement used for pederasty. He likely knew things, even if not directly involved in child killings. Like Busch, dead men can’t talk, as he turned up dead of a “heart attack” (common theme in these cases) and chewed up by his dogs.

The King family also understands that Lamborgine may have made admissions to another jail inmate about being involved in the OCCK case. Hearsay evidence indicated that Lamborgine was not the one who murdered the victims, but that he molested all of the kids from the OCCK case.

Even after Lamborgine was in prison, the Task Force Representatives offered to change his name and move him to a better federal prison, if he could provide information on the OCCK case. Lamborgine did not accept this offer.

The aforementioned were active on the pederast procuring and rape scene. Police suspect there may have been hundreds of men involved in this network. Typically, the parties in the rich suburbs were potluck orgies where boys were sodomized, photographed, then thrown in a bathtub and hosed off.

North Fox Island

The proprietors of North Fox Island were wealthy Michigan elites. This was a remote island in Traverse Bay, outside of Traverse City, Michigan. Someone using an assumed name had purchased the island and put in an airplane runway. The island was then used as a camp for young boys from around Michigan who were flown to the island and then sexually abused.

The owner was later identified as Francis Sheldon from Grosse Pointe, Michigan. There were reports that Busch and his pornographic films were delivered to Flint, Michigan, and from there distributed globally. Police did not follow up on this either.

The North Fox Island ring was what was referred to as a “hard candy” ring. This requires some sort of input or vetting from the pederast community to join — either by providing photos of children or bringing kids to meet ups. This ensured that if things went down, everyone went down. To have enough dirt to bury someone, they become part of the collective. This is the classic brownstone operation used to control and compromise. Photos were taken and reels existed of their acts with little boys. Then the degenerates get promoted into positions of power and control. Fox Island was likely part of that and for certain types, a stepping stone.

The Traverse City Record-Eagle began running a series of news articles by reporter Marilyn Wright about the child porn and pedophilia ring on North Fox Island, as well as child porn rings linked throughout the country and internationally. Shelden used his position in a fake social program, “Brother Paul’s Children’s Mission,” to fly boys in his private plane to a “boy’s nature camp” on the island.

Wright’s articles ran until December 1977.  There was an update on Aug. 23, 1978. The headline read “Porno Figure [Shelden] Running Out of Places to Hide.”

Late in 1976, North Fox Island also gained notoriety when its owners were charged with running a pornography operation involving young boys who were taken to North Fox under the pretext of being taken to a camp for boys.

To make a pedophile ring work, the boys being abused need to be scared of death or of harm to their families. As the Fox Island operation fell apart, is it possible the ring needed to terrorized the children involved to keep them quiet? That, and making snuff films, are motives for the OCCK. The two girls and two boys were picked at random. That girls were also killed was a message that their siblings were not safe either. Busch’s murder was to deal with a weak link, and also send a message to the finders and handlers of the boys to keep their mouths shut, too.

There is another possible element to this case, expressed by an eyewitness when Kristine Mihelich was abducted. This is shown at minute 00:54:25 in Part II of the “Children in the Snow” documentary. He said on camera that Mihelich got into what appeared to be a police cruiser. 

From “In Portraits in the Snow, The Oakland County Child Killings … Scandals and Small Conspiracies” (2011), author M.F. Cribari wrote that a Detroit Free Press article dated Dec. 28, 1975, describes the generosity of Shelden, a “wealthy Ann Arbor bachelor,“ who was on the board of directors of The Cranbrook Institute (a private boys school in suburban Detroit), and Boys Republic, Inc. (a residential center for emotionally disturbed adolescents), who also devoted his time to the Big Brother program. Chris Busch was a Big Brother, too. Gregory Greene was a boys’ baseball coach.

Shelden was also a staff writer in the 1970s for “Better Life Monthly” (BLM), a magazine described as representing an international organization “seeking liberation for boys and boy-lovers.” Coded advertisements allowed subscribers to contact each other and to engage children in pornographic modeling and prostitution. Child pornographer Gerald Richards (a registered sex offender who apparently died in Port Huron prison in 1994 of, you guessed it, a “heart attack”) met Shelden around 1974.

Richards was a gym teacher at St. Joseph’s Catholic Elementary School in Dexter, Mich., who had run for public office. The father of two young kids at the time, Richards was also a child counselor, licensed hypnotist, massage therapist and naturopath. In fact, he had a “clinic,” which a few child victims (both male and female) describe in great detail in police reports.

Shelden responded to an ad Richards placed in BLM that described his “magic show.” The two corresponded and then met. Richards had been thinking of starting a “boys camp.” When he learned Shelden owned Fox Island, the two of them “naturally thought about organizing the camp.” (From police reports)

The Church of Revelation ran an ad in BLM offering to help readers set up child-care organizations and camps. The Church of New Revelation was not a church at all, but just a referral and pimping agency that distributed child porn around the country. The “church” was incorporated in New Jersey in 1974. The same people also incorporated the Educational Foundation for Youth, allegedly based in Chicago. This foundation started out as the non-profit arm of a for-profit corporation that was listed as an “import/export” business.

Childcare sites and camps for boys were then set up under the auspices of the church and the foundation — charitable and educational entities that guaranteed state and federal income tax exemptions. These tax dodges were fronts for child pornography and pedophilia. Not only that, but some state welfare departments were duped into making payments for the support of the boys. At the time, counties would pay up to $150 a month per boy, the state up to $400, and the feds up to $700. In many cases, these guys were actually getting paid by the government to rape kids and film child pornography.

This activity was then photographed by adult directors, according to reports made to the state police, for use in hard-core pornographic magazines.

Richards responded to the church’s ad and “Reverend” Dyer Grossman (aka Dale Osterman, Elliot Crossman, Elijah Crossman) came from New Jersey to Port Huron to help Richards set up Brother Paul’s Childrens Mission. Grossman came from a very wealthy Long Island family and had been — no real surprise — a science teacher at two boys schools, one of them a boarding school. Richards was the president of this newly formed mission, and Grossman was the vice president. Shelden was listed as a director of the corporation.

In July 1976, the free-for-all was over for Fox Island patrons when charges were filed against Richards and later against Shelden and Grossman for CSC 1st degree for the rape of two boys in Port Huron and on Fox Island. Richards was arrested, but neither Shelden or Grossman were ever served with warrants.

The foot-dragging by prosecuting attorneys representing Port Huron and Ann Arbor ensured that these multi-millionaires would easily have plenty of time to destroy records and flee the country in their private jets, which is precisely what happened. Richards was arrested on July 23, 1976; but, according to a case file entry dated Aug. 2, 1976, Washtenaw County Prosecutor Peter Deegan “wants to wait on warrant for Sheldon [sic] until investigation is completed.”

A Sept. 27, 1976, entry notes, “The St. Clair prosecutor was contacted with request for warrant for Grossman for sex crime last summer. He has not authorized as yet due to work load. If/when warrant is issued, the information will be related to same authority the above info will be referred to.”

And then, on Oct. 8, 1976: “Re-open complaint. Complaint was closed in error. Attempts will be made to obtain warrants for Dyer Grossman and Frank Shelden.”

The lowly gym teacher takes the bullet for the group; but it barely grazes him, given the crimes he committed. He provided information and testimony (relatively self-serving B.S.) concerning these “child care” fronts, pleaded guilty and received a sentence of two to 10 years. He would serve nowhere near a 10-year term and was back out on the streets in relatively short order.

Richards told police that if anything were to ever happen to Shelden, Richards was to go to his home and destroy the files with porno photos, etc. “to save Shelden’s parents and relatives any embarrassment.” When prosecutors finally got around to issuing a search warrant, all of Shelden’s file cabinets were empty.

Authorities discovered Shelden was living in the Netherlands. Shelden was never extradited and died at age 68 on July 1, 1996. Dyer Grossman was apparently never located.

In Amsterdam, Sheldon changed his name to Torey and, from 1979 to 1984, published “Pan: A Magazine about Boy-Love” (changed to Paedo Alert News in 1982). He also edited the first anthology of boy-love fiction “Panthology” (1981), published by John Stamford’s Spartacus. Torey founded his own Pan publishing house, the Acolyte Press, the most important publisher of boy-love fiction and erotica for a decade. Torey was also an author and published many of his short stories under the pen names Peter Zupp, Scott Altman, Wallington Fuger and Jotham Lotring.

A FOIA was filed in 2011 for FBI documents concerning Chris Busch and Francis Shelden. Both are deceased, so it should have been no problem. But, believe it or not, the files were among those “destroyed in a catastrophic flood” (their words) at one of the FBI’s storage facilities.

Here’s the outstanding documentary on the OCCK, “Children of the Snow,” Part I and II: