Research Paper On John Norman Collins

John Norman Collins, most known as The Co-ed Killer, was arrested for the murder of a young girl named Karen Sue Beineman. Collins methods of killing included rape, mutilation and strangulation of young women. For two years the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti community was in shock over the murders of seven young women, giving the name Co-ed murders. The first murder occurred on July 9th, 1967. The young girl was 19 years old; she went out for a nightly walk near the Eastern Michigan University campus and told her roommate that she needed to get some air. She never returned from her walk, and her body was not discovered until August 7th, 1967. Her body was badly decomposed. She had been stabbed many times in the chest and her fingers and feet were dismembered.

Four of the victims all were connected to Eastern Michigan University, strangling was involved in four out of five of the case. All the victims were white, they all had brown hair and all the bodies were found very easily. This led the police to believe that the killer wanted his victims to be found. Mutilation of the victims was also a similarity. Hundreds of tips were given to the agencies however they all ended up being loss causes. Police were having such a hard time solving this investigation and were so desperate for a break that they looked for help from a well known nationwide criminologist to help look into the investigation. The public was calling in tips continuously, yet many of them were false tips. What would soon be considered to be the last of the co-ed killings occurred on July 23rd, 1969, where an 18 year old girl named Karen Beinemen’s body was found. Beinemen was found strangled and nude, her face was beaten terribly. She was last seen by a store clerk where she was purchasing a wig from, where she mentioned how she was getting a ride with a stranger on a motorcycle. The motorcycle was believed to be a Honda 450, investigators obtained a list of all models in the state and began the tedious attempt to find the killer through the list that was obtained. Sheriff Harvey, who was the main sheriff on this case, had a plan to leave a mannequin where the next victim’s body was recovered. This plan was put into place because it was thought that the killer returned to the scene. Their plan seemed to work for a male was found in the area walking down the road, at approximately midnight. However when he got close enough to the mannequin and realized it was not Beinemen he bolted through the woods, and was lost by authorities. The investigation still continued until finally they got the break they were waiting