A SLAYER WAITS-Rod Sadler

fifty five. Neee Buchanan, a trustee at the State Prison of Southern Michigan, was denied parole because of his trustee status. He was assigned to pick up local trash from area farms in a prison truck, which provided the perfect opportunity to escape. Running out of gas near Stockbridge, Michigan, and continuing on foot, he hid out inside the barn of Howard and Myra Herrick, an elderly farm couple.

Howard Herrick's identity. Thinking Buchanan was still an area, fearful residents armed themselves and looked upon strangers with suspicion. Ingham County Sheriff William Willard Barnes led the hunt for the kis, searching for months, but the investigation came to a dead end. Harry Doesburg and Naghmer to the Herricks raised a three thousand dollar reward, much of his own money, to find the killer. Dosburg sent wanted posters across the country and

paid for wanted ads in various newspapers and magazines. Thirteen months later, an informant in Baltimore recognized Buchanan from a wanted ad in a magazine and turned him in. Buchanan was quickly returned to Michigan, signed a confession, pled guilty, and was sentenced to life in prison, all within a seventy two hour period. Ten years after a sentence, Neelie began appealing his conviction on numerous grounds, including police misconduct,

racial threats, and improper court proceedings. For twenty five years, Neely had not been represented the book they were featuring the seating as a Slayer Waits, The True Story of a Michigan double Murder with my special guest, journalist and author Rod Sadler, welcomed back to the program. Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Rod Sadler.

they said that's where that couple was killed. Well, you know what, as a kid who was seven or eight or nine years old, you hear about that, and I just I glanced over at the barn, and I always remembered that barn for some reason. And then I forgot about it. I forgot about it for the rest of

my life until a couple of years ago. I'm a consultant on the side, and I was chatting with an attorney that I knew, and he happened to mention that he had used to work for the Ingham County Prosecutor's office in the nineteen seventies and that he had handled an appeal for this particular killer. Well, I remembered the case very vividly. I remember that day driving up fifty two and my parents pointing out that barn, and he began to go into all these points that the killer

had made in an attempt to appeal his conviction. And I had just decided that I had already published my first book, and since I had a contact there that knew a lot about it, maybe this would be an interesting second book. And so that's how it kind of all started.

County is both in Mason and Lancing. Both. There's a small town south of that called Leslie. Along the center of the county is Williamstown, and then along the east side of the county is a small town called Webberville. And then if you go to the southeastern corner of

the county there's a small town called Stockbridge. These small towns in nineteen fifty five, as you can imagine if you're older, I guess the best way to describe it, and I was trying to think of a way to describe it on the way in here tonight, if you can think of the town of Mayberry. You know, life was or a lot easier back then, or seemed that way anyway to those of us nowadays. But deals were made on handshakes, Strangers were welcomed with open arms, left

their doors unlocked. You know, Families got together for picnics and the whole communities got together for picnics and Sunday dinners, and it was just it was a lot. It was a lot easier time back then, and Ingham County was no exception, nor was Stockbridge. It was just an easy way of life back then. And you know, the country was recovering from World War Two and the Korean War, the economy was booming. It was just really a good

time to be alive. On the flip side of that, there was also the civil rights movement that was just starting, and the book touches on that to some degree. But all in all, Ingham County was a nice place to grow up, a nice place to live back in nineteen fifty five.

in the town of Flint. I'm sure you're familiar with the Flint water crisis right now, but that's where they ended up. And he was well liked by the neighbors, by the people that he grew up with in that area. All of his neighbors liked him. But he eventually he got into trouble at a young age and it started, you know, with small thefts and things like that, even at a young age. Before he became a teenager, and that's when that's when his life really took a turn.

And I think that's really when it all began.

or big business building, if you will. It's large brick building and had these small cottages all around. And each day the kids went through a regimented routine, and that included calisthenics. It included marching three times a day, in formation, it included classroom sessions. The kids were given specific jobs to do. And beyond that, the troubled kids, those that didn't go along with the program were punished in one

way or another. And the one that sticks out the most to me is they were forced to stand on a line for hours on end, and that was a sort of punishment. They had a cabin number five, I believe it was, that was used specifically for punishment, and those were the severe cases. A lot of times the kids that ended up in number five, as they called it, would end up trying to burn mattresses or causing damage to the building, or screaming, yelling, assaulted behavior, things like that.

So that was kind of the the atmosphere, if you will, around the Boys Vocational Training School. It was actually located in Lansing. It was located on Pennsylvania near Shiawashie Street. There was a b facility. Even into the nineteen seventies when it was still open, the Lansing Police Department would frequently get calls of runaways from that particular facility until

it was eventually closed. There was a report issued back in the nineteen forties, actually while Buchanan was still there, that said all of the types of punishment that were going on there needed to stop. That wasn't the way that that facility was intended. And it was shortly thereafter that Buchanan got out of there. But I don't know if that sets the stage well enough, but I don't think it was a very pleasant place to be.

to avoid prosecution or to avoid jail time. And so he joined the service, and during World War Two he served over in Europe, and he actually drove an ammunition truck over in Europe for two or three years, and he was released from the Army, had an honorable discharge, and came back to the States. He had met his wife while he was in the army and was married and came back. They moved to the Detroit area and he began trying to support her and ended up getting back into trouble again.

his family. But he did an arm robbery of a cab driver in the town of Inkster, Michigan, down by Detroit, and he was quickly convicted, and he was he was sentenced to the State Prison of Southern Michigan which is today known as Jackson, which is Jackson Prison, which is the world's largest walled institution. And it's not a very nice place to be. And so when he got sentenced to prison, he did his time, and he got paroled.

He was allowed out on parole, and it was shortly after his release on parole that he chose to break into a Chevy dealership called Funston Chevrolet in Detroit, and he was quickly caught. And I have to admit, I don't know if he was caught inside the building. But he was caught immediately, and he knew he was going back to prison. He knew that he'd have to go back before judge and that the judge wouldn't be happy

because he was out on parole at the time. And the judge quickly sentenced him to one to fifteen years in prison for the break in at Funston Chevrolet and said at the same time that when he completed that he should complete his serving his sentence for the armed robbery and inkster.

applied for and was given a parole hearing. He didn't know what to expect in that parole hearing, and so he went in before the parole board and they determined that it was just too simply too soon for him.

He'd only been back in prison for ten months, he had been paroled before and had broke done a break in, and so they decided, no, you need this to spend a little bit more time, and so they said, your parole is denied, and they told him that he would not be able to reapply for parole for at least two years. This occurred on September. It was late August, or like September one, nineteen fifty five. It was literally two days before he ended up escaping from the prison.

He had already been given in that short ten months that he'd been back in prison, he had already earned trustee status, which allowed him to be housed outside the prison walls and to do menial tasks. Go in this case, he was allowed to use a prison truck go around to the local farms and pick up garbage from the local farms, and then he would bring that back to the prison and that would be given to the hogs

that the prisoners raised. Jackson Prison or the State Prison of Southern Michigan at that time, really it was a city within itself. They grew their own produce, they raised their own farm animals, they had wood shops things like that, So it really was a city within itself. And the whole purpose of Neely Buchanan being allowed out as a parole to pick up the trash was simply to bring it back and it would be fed to the hogs and the livestock that they were raising within the prison.

It seemed that there was frequently walkaways. They were very creative and how they escaped somewhat hide in crates and boxes and you know, be carried out on trucks. Some of them walk crawled through prisons. A couple of them actually took over a guard tower and actually ended up in a shootout with the prison guards. Prior to this, and that it seemed as if, at least in the communities around Jackson, that the local residents were always calling

in about escapees. The press was always talking about the escapees from the prison, and it just didn't seem that a lot was being done about that at the time, and that became a real issue, especially after the murders of Howard and Myra Herrick.

Neely wanted to get back with his family. He missed his wife, and he had two little girls by that time, and they were very very young. I think one was the oldest was three at the time, and the youngest was probably born either just before he went back to prison or shortly thereafter. But he set up to take the prison truck out and get the pick up the trash from the local farms. And he set out one

morning and he never turned back. He had a prison truck at his disposal, and he was supposed to be outside. He was supposed to be away from the prison, and he figured it would be a while before they noticed

whether or not he came back. So he started north from Jackson along his route, picking up the trash, and he got to the small town of Stockbridge in the southeast corner of Ingham County, and the truck was getting low on gas, and so rather than run out of gas on a roadway and be more noticeable, he ditched it at the local high school in Stockbridge and he

set out on foot. It was still dark out when he abandoned it at the high school and he set out walking north, kind of paralleling the state highway at that time it was, and he walked through woods and fields all day. Well, he's doing that. About four miles north of Stockbridge there was a small farm and it was owned by an elderly couple. And I say elderly,

and I have to apologize for that. I'm fifty six years old, and I think that mister and missus Herrick were in their mid sixties, so they weren't really much older than me, and I don't consider myself elderly. But beyond that, they lived on this farm of eighty acres and it was all land. There was only their farmhouse and a barn. And this was the farm that Myra Herrick had been born in. Her parents lived there. She had lived there all of her life until she met

Howard and they were married, and she moved out. Once her parents passed away, Howard and her moved back into that home, and they had lived there and had raised their children there. Their children were adults, were moved out of the house, so Howard and Myra lived there by themselves.

Howard was a retired chicken farmer. He still had a brood of chickens in the barn on the lower level, and every Sunday the entire family would come over to the Herrick farm and they'd have a big meal, and the kids would play in the barn and jump off the hay, and the parents would sit down on the front porch and swap stories, and it was sort of a I don't know how else to describe it other than to tell you maybe a Norman Rockwell painting, if you will. It was just an easier time back then.

So Howard and Myra lived there. Across the street from Howard and Myra's house was a little general store. It was owned by a guy by the name of Harry Dosberg. Harry lived there with his wife, and they had little grocery items in their store. They had cold cuts, they sold gas. And then north of there, about two miles was the very small village, and I say small because it was another general store, a church, and a school,

and it was called the village of Millville. So that was two miles north of Howard and Myra's home and Harry Dosberg store. The state highway M ninety two, which she eventually became M fifty two, ran north and south between Stockbridge and another town into the next county called Perry, and it was just a really simpler time back then. So Neely Buchanan sets off walking through the woods in the fields, and he walks all day. He's trying to

stay concealed. He knows they're going to eventually find that prison truck, and they do. He abandons it probably around six am, five or six am, and starts out walking through the woods in the fields. And about eight third the Sheriff's department gets a call about this abandoned prison truck at the Stockbridge Schools. It doesn't take them long to determine that number one, it shouldn't be there, and number two, the driver's missing. So quick call to the prison.

They determined that Neely Buchanan has escaped, and the story continues from there. Neely comes upon the Herrick home after dark that night. He said it was still dark when he got there, and he chose that barn simply because he wanted to rest. He went in there and lay

down and figured he was going to sleep. He could see that the lights on in the house and inside the barn was a fifty to two DeSoto automobile, and he figured the next day when the farmer came out, he would get the keys from him and further his escape from there. He was tired of walking, I guess, and so his plan was to knock out mister Herrick and take the keys to the car. So in the barn is a large chopping block that mister Herrick used

to slaughter his chickens. So Neelie Buchanan takes that chopping block and he sets it in the rafters right over where the car is, and he figures the next morning, when mister Harrick comes in, he will push that off the rafters and he will knock out mister Herrick, grab the keys, and take the fifty two to Soto and escape. That's what his plan was. Unfortunately for the Herricks, it didn't turn out that way.

he's missed his opportunity. He's got every chance now to just simply leave the barn and continue on foot, but he wants what's the keys to that car. He knows that mister Harrick is going to come back. He knows he's going to have a chance again, so he waits. Well, mister Harrick comes back at three in the afternoon after

leaving his part time job. Unbeknownst to Neely, Neely is out walking around in the barn because he's bored, and he's looking over mister Herrick's tools, and he said in his confession he said the car was really quiet, and he said he was surprised when the car pulled in and he was standing there. Neely had a hand grinder in his hand and he was looking at it when mister Harrick pulled into the barn. Mister Harrick always parked his DeSoto inside his barn and let me back up

just a little bit. Just prior to this, Neelie's looking around the barn. Mister Harrick gets back and it's a Saturday afternoon. He stops at Harry Dosberg's store across the street. This is something that is routine. He does it every Saturday. Harry Dosberg comes out, doesn't even ask what mister Herrick wants because he knows Howard Herrick is there to have

his gas tank filled up. And on the passenger seat of the car there's always mister Herrick's lunch pail, and there's a clean uniform from Wyeth Industries where he worked in Mason. So Howard Herrick pulls into Harry Dosberg's store. They chat a little bit. Harry pokes his head in, talks to Margaret, Harry Dolsberg's wife. Margaret says, what are your plans for the weekend? Always says, we're going up

north to see some cousins. Oh that's great. So here, Howard Herrick gets back into his car, drives literally across the street, up around behind the house and pulls into the barn and there's Neely Buchanan standing there with a hand grinder in his hand next to tool bench. Howard says from inside the car, he says, what are you doing here? Neely Buchanan keeps calm. He says, I'm just looking at your tools. He says, I wondered if you wanted to buy it or if you wanted to sell this.

Howard Herrick says, as he's getting out of the car. No, well, Howard Herrick was blind in his left eye and I was never able to determine how that happened. But as he's getting out of his car, and Buchanan says, hey, I was wondering if you wanted to sell this. Howard's stepping out of the car, Neely comes across with the hand grinder and hits Howard Herrick in the head, knocking him down to the barn floor and briefly knocking him out.

She puts the handgrinder down, and he starts going through Howard Herrick's pockets, and he's looking for his wallet and his money, and he's looking for the keys to the car. About that same time, missus Herrick notices that Howard hasn't come out of the barn, so she goes in to see what's going on, and imagine her surprise when she walks in to see Neelie Buchanan kneeling over her husband, who's now unconscious and bleeding and going through his pockets.

She says, what's going on in here, Neely grabs a ballpen hammer and attacks her, and she's able to fend off several blows. The pathologist that did her autopsy found several bruises on her hands and her arms where she was trying to fend off the blows from this ballpeen hammer. Neelie Buchanan finally connects with her head and knocks her out and then hits her again in the head with the ball peen hammer. Unbeknownst to him, she is still alive,

but she's unconscious about this time. Now, Howard Herrick comes too, and he starts to get up, so Neely hits him a second time in the head, crushing his skull and kills him instantly. Now he's got to decide what to do. He knows that somebody's going to check that barn eventually, so he drags both bodies over into the hay area where the bailed hay is stored, and he covers both bodies with bails of hay in an attempt to conceal him, and then he goes back to the car and he

rifles around looking for the keys to the car. Unfortunately for him, when mister Herrick was getting out of the car and was struck and he l the car keys fell under some hay and Neely never found him, so he had to set off and continue his escape on foot.

Everything is normal, except his parents aren't there. That seemed a little bit odd. So he went out to check the barn because he knew that his dad always parked the car in the barn. Well, the car was in the barn. He didn't go up and look in it, but he noticed the car was in the barn, so he figured that they must have left. They must have went somewhere in a hurry with some friends for some reason. And so he talks to his wife says, they must

have had to go somewhere. I'll just talk to him tomorrow. He gets the eggs that he needs and he leaves. The next day, he shows back up and everything is the same as it was the day before. The car is still in the barn. Parents are nowhere to be found and he noticed something peculiar. Howard and Myra Herrick had a parakeet, and missus Herrick loved that parakeet and she fed that bird every day, except he noticed that the bird hadn't been fed. He knew something was wrong,

so he called his brother. And his brother lived on the other side of the county in a small town called Onondaga, and his brother Harold said, yep, something's wrong. Mother would never leave without feeding that parakeet. That something must be wrong. He says, I will meet you at the farm. So he heads out and on the way to the farm, they swing through Mason and they stopped at the Ingham County Sheriff's department and they speak with Captain Versall Babcock, who was the chief of detectives at

the time. And Captain Babcock actually knew the Herricks. He had met him the year before, and he agreed, yeah, something just doesn't sound right. He knew about Neely Buchanan's escape. He knew that the prison truck had been found in Stockbridge. He knew something was wrong at the Herricks. He was starting to put two and two together, but he didn't want to worry the Herrick boys because they hadn't heard probably or probably hadn't heard about the escape bee because

they hadn't mentioned it. But he agreed to go over with them to check out the residents. It was now dark out. It was September third. September third was the day they were killed. Was December sorry September fifth. He goes over, He checks the house. Everything is in order. Missus Herrick's pocketbook is laying on the kitchen table, the windows are open. Parakeets obviously still hasn't been fed. The Herrick boys had checked with Howard and Myra's best friends

in Dansville. They said, no, we haven't seen him, so that just added to the to the concern. So they go out. Captain Babcock and the Suns go out and they begin to check the barn and one of the boys goes down to check where the chickens are and he notices some red fluid, dark dark red fluid on top of one of the kitchen cage or chicken cages, and he goes up and he realizes that it's blood and that it has dripped through the floor from above.

So he goes back up and by that time Captain Babcock and the other son had been searching around with their flashlights and they discovered sticking out from under one of the hay bales was an arm and a leg and it was mister Herrick's body. And then that's essentially

how they were discovered. I have to tell you that as they entered the barn, it had been two days in extreme heat, and Captain Babcock and the deputy that was with him, they knew I think once they entered that barn what they were going to find, just because

of the odor. So as they start to process the scene, they secure the scene, they get help coming and as they're lifting the hay bail off mister Herrick's body, they notice missus Herrick's foot sticking out from a second out from under a second hay bail, and then they discover her body also.

where they were. They knew that it was Neely Buchanan. They just had to prove it, and so they called in the Michigan State Police crime Laboratory, who came and they lifted a fingerprint from the automobile. Neely had gotten into their mister Herrick's DeSoto, and he had pulled the dash panel down near the floor in an attempt to hot wire the car, but he didn't know how to do it, so he just left the car there with

his fingerprints on it. They were able to quickly match Buchanan's fingerprint with the fingerprints that were on file with the state because he'd been in prison, and so within a day or two they knew absolutely, without any doubt that Neely Buchanan had murdered Howard and Meyer Herrick that night. That particular night, Sheriff Barnes had been woken up and had gone to the scene, and he ordered his men to start going door to door in the middle of

the night to see if anybody remembered anything. Well, he goes over. The deputy goes over to Harry Dosberg's store. She begins to ask Dosberg if he's seen anything unusual. Well, Dosberg had seen a black man hitchhiking on Saturday afternoon and he paid no attention to it. It was a little unusual, but he never thought anything of it, and it was right after Howard had filled his gas tank there.

Shortly after Howard left the gas station or Harry Dosberg's store, his wife was working and she suddenly heard some screaming and she thought it was unusual, but she knew that Howard and Myra Herrick were hard of hearing, and so she figured it was their television. She never realized at the time that it was Howard and Myra Harrick being bludgeoned to death. She was listening to her neighbors being killed.

So when the deputy shows up in the middle of the night, he begins to question Harry Dosberg, asking him if he saw anything, telling him that his neighbor's been murdered. Missus Dosberg comes out. She suddenly realizes the screams that she had heard weren't their television. It was Howard and

Myra being murdered. So Harry describes. Harry describes the black man that he saw hitchhiking, and he knew that another local farmer had given that guy a ride, and so he said, yeah, Jarvis Wireman gave that guy a ride. Go talk to him. So they go over to Jarvis Wireman's house. Jarvi Wireman says, yeah, and McCoy was with me. Go over and talk to McCoy. So they go to the other farmer's house and they're show him pictures of Buchanan and he says, yeah, that's the guy. That's the

guy that was in the truck with us. They go to the next door up the road to Millville where Buchanan had gotten a ride to from this Jarvis Wireman and he identifies him. Says, yeah, that's the guy that was in the store and he got a ride from

Wireman over to Mason. So they go over to Mason and they notify the Mason police and everybody's starting to be on edge, and suddenly they realized that the killer took a cab from Mason into Lancing to the Lansing bus station that now the police have nowhere to search. He could be anywhere. The bus people didn't remember him, They didn't remember Neely Buchanan coming in and buying a ticket, so they had the police had nothing. Their trail turned cold at that point.

Blue Apron has established partnerships with over one hundred and fifty local farms, fisheries, and ranchers across the United States, and as a result, seafood is sourced sustainably. Beef, chicken, and pork come from responsibly raised animals, and produces source from farms that practice regenerative farming. Blue Apron can be delivered to ninety nine percent of the continental US It's

affordable for less than ten dollars per meal. Blue Apron delivers seasonal recipes along with the preportioned ingredients to make delicious home cooked meals. You can choose from a variety of new recipes each week, or let Blue Apron's culinary team surprise you. Recipes are not separated within a year, so you'll never get bored. It's flexible so you can customize your recipes each week based on your prefers, and Blue Apron has several delivery options so you can choose

what fits your needs. And there's no weekly commitment so you only get deliveries when you want them. Each meal comes with a step by step trust me easy to follow recipe card and pre portioned fresh ingredients and can be prepared in forty minutes or less. It also has a Blue Apron Freshness guarantee promises every ingredient in your delivery arrives ready to cook fresh or they'll make it right now. The featured upcoming meals this week include the

basil pesto chicken with the summer vegetable panzanella. I tried that it was fantastic. I loved it. Panzanella's kind of like a salad with bread and tomatoes, but the spices the combination for the basil pesto chicken were fantastic, and they also tried the saute shrimp and green beans with the globe tomatoes, spin and orzo pasta little rice pasta fantastic. I loved it. I put it together myself, and like I say, easy to put together. Gourmet cooking done by me,

You can do it. It's fantastic, fresh and unbelievable gourmet cooking made by me at home. Now check out this week's menu and get your first three meals free with free shipping by going to blue Apron dot com slash murder. You'll love how good it feels and tays to create your own incredible home cook meals with Blue Apron. So don't wait, that's blue Apron dot com slash murder. Blue Apron a better way to cook. Now we have the discovery of Myra and Howard Herrick. We also have the

police hot on the trail of Neely Buchanan. And as you say, they have no idea, but Neely Buchanan starts a new life in another city using the identity of Howard Herrick. So tell us what he does, where does he go, and how does he rebuild his new life? How is that possible, What does he do well?

grabbed a bus. Originally he was going to go to Chicago. He figured he would just mix in in Chicago. Unfortunately, the bus to Chicago was going to leave later than he wanted to hang around, and so he took the bus to New York, which was actually a little further away, and he ended up just staying in a flophouse for a couple of days and finding quick work. He was

using Howard Herrick's name. The one mistake that Buchanan made was he sent a postcard to his wife, and even though he hadn't seen her in several years, he just wanted her to know that he was okay. Well, she quickly turned that over to the police and they saw the New York City postmark. So New York City detectives are looking for a double murderer. They're looking for Neely Buchanans and they're in the Bowery, if you will, They're

looking in all the flophouses. Neely Buchanan comes back from work one day, and this is just within a couple of days of the bodies being found, and he hears a couple of the transients talking about how the police had been in there looking for a guy named Needlely Buchanan. Well they only knew him as Howard Herrick because that was the name that he was using. So he figured he'd better get out of dodge, if you will. So Buchanan decides he's going to head to either North or

South Carolina, and I have to apologize. I don't remember exactly, but he's only got enough money to get to Baltimore, and so he takes the bus to Baltimore and he works a couple quick jobs and finally settles into a job at a paper company, and that's where he ends up working and continues to work until that fateful day when he's discovered.

or that he would break into their homes. Kids were being taught how to use shotguns. There was a photo in one of the papers that I found that showed a woman who was teaching her fifteen year old daughter how to use a double barrel shotgun, and while her eleven year old friend looked on. There was an elderly woman who literally put a revolver in her refrigerator, figuring that if Buchanan broke in and wanted food, she would reach in the refrigerator to get food for him and

pull out the revolver and shoot him. The hardware stores in Stockbridge, they were running out of ammunition and guns, and they were running out of locks. It was everybody was fearful. There was a salesman from a nearby community who was going door to doors selling I think he was selling vacuum cleaners, and everybody kept reporting him that that, uh, there was a strange guy knocking on doors. People wouldn't

answer their doors they were so fearful. The one the salesman actually went out and was tired and laid down in the brush near a field and and somebody saw him do that, and so they called the police and and they quickly swooped in and and determined that he wasn't the killer, obviously, But people we were calling in sightings down in Detroit, they were There was a prison guard who who was certain that he saw Buchan and

driving through Jackson. Another x inmate from the prison said he was sure that Buchanan had broken out to get him. The fear was just overwhelming, and it continued for several months. To this day, I'll tell you a little side note to this. To this day, people still have changed their lives because of that. And I'll give you an example.

I was talking to a local principle here in Eaton County and he told me that they always, always, always locked their vehicles, and after that murder, his dad parked a jeep out by their barn and he left the keys in it and left the doors unlocked, figuring that if an escape he came after that murder, he could jump in the vehicle and take off. So people's entire lives were changed because of that double murder. And I

think to this day they were or they are. I know that that the children of Howard and Meira Herrick, their lives were changed forever. They were in fear for the rest of their lives that Buchanan was going to get out of prison and come back and kill them. It was it was just it changed the way that people lived back then.

for information leading to the arrest of Neely Buchanan. Harry Dosberg took it upon himself to raise that reward beyond that five hundred dollar mark. He went door to door in the community during the evenings asking people to donate

to the reward fund. Harry Dosberg took a lot of his own money, and he had wanted posters made and people would step into his store, people passing through on the State, and he would hand out what they called the bundles for Buchanan, and they were stacks of wanted posters, and he simply asked him to drop them off at restaurants or gas stations or wherever they were going, just to get word out there because the police, the police

investigation had come to a standstill, and Harry continued his quest. He actually contacted every police agency in the United States and made sure that they had a wanted poster, including some police agencies in Canada, all the federal agencies. He really was a one man crusade to catch the killer of his neighbors. There were times where he would send out over one hundred dollars in mailings of his own money.

He had he had wanted ads for Neely Buchanan put in in magazines that were geared toward African Americans because he figured that Buchanan was probably hiding in a big city amongst the black community in an effort to hide, and so he took it upon himself to do that and he got the reward raceed to three hundred dollars earth I'm sorry, three thousand dollars, and then continued mailing

these things out with his own money. And it literally, I'm telling you right now, it literally was a one man campaign to catch that killer.

in the wanted poster. He doesn't. He says, no, that's not me, and she believes him. She believes him. And this is in Baltimore. So a couple of days, a couple of weeks later, another guy is looking through a magazine called Bronze Thrills and it's a pulp fiction sort of a true crime, true detective type magazine, and it's written for black people. It's geared toward African Americans. And he's looking through his issue with Bronze Thrills and he

spots nearly Buchanan's wanted boaster. He thinks the reward is three hundred dollars. He's been in prison himself for assault, but he can use the money. And he had met Buchanan about a month before that in a bar and they had something in common. That's what made him remember him because they both lived on Bond Street, excuse me, in Baltimore. So he flags down a couple of patrolmen. He sees one of the patrolmen that he knows, and he flags down him and his partner and tells him

about it. Well, he shows him the wanted ad and they're like, sure, I can tell you right now. If somebody told me that, I'd probably say, well, let's go check it out. But the chances that it's him are probably slimmed. It on they confront Neely Buchanan in a candy store you can and sees him coming and he steps into a candy store, hoping that they won't see him. They stepped in right after him, and they confront him. They've seen the wantedad, and the wantedad says that he's

killed a guy named Howard Herrick. So they confront him in the candy store. They ask him, what's your name, Howard Herrick? He tells him his name is Howard Herrick. They know they've got their man. They ask him for some identification. All he's got with him is some pay stubs from the Bohega Paper Company where he was working with the name Howard Herrick on him on it, and so they keep pressing him right in the candy store, and finally he says, you know what you got me?

He says, I escaped from prison in Michigan. I was wanted for b and e or for breaking and entering, And Officer Zukowski says to him, he says, did you hurt anybody, because he knows he killed them, and Buchanan finally says yeah. He says, he says, I killed those two people in Michigan, And so he's arrested literally without incident, and he's taken to the Baltimore City Jail and he's interviewed there by some detectives and he makes a statement

and the Ingham County Sheriff is notified immediately. The next morning, they fly out of Willow Run Airport in Detroit, fly to Baltimore, and they take two deputies with him. The sheriff takes two deputies. He takes Harry Dosberg because Harry's got the reward money, and makes a reporter from the

local paper called the Ingham County Democrat. And they get to Baltimore and the next day, the next morning, they pick up their prisoner and they're on their way back to Michigan, and that evening that afternoon, when they return, they interview Buchanan and he makes a complete confession and he describes in vivid detail how he killed Howard and Myira Herrick and what his intentions were. He's interviewed by the chief assistant prosecuting attorney and the sheriff and another

prosecuting attorney, and he makes this statement. They take him over to be arraigned before the local Justice of the Peace so that he can hear the charges against him. At that point, he's offered what's called a preliminary examination, which is like a mini trial. The prosecution simply has to show that a crime was committed and there's reason to believe that Buchanan had committed it. Buchanan says, nope, I'll waive my preliminary examination. I just want to get

this over with. So the Justice of the Peace, he says, your case is bound over to the Circuit Court. You'll go before the Circuit Court in the morning for your arraignment. There so they take him to Lancing. The next morning, he's arraigned before a circuit court judge and the judge says to him, you have the right to have an attorney present. This is in nineteen fifty six. Now you have the right to have an attorney present, but if you can't afford one, the court will appoint one for you.

And the judge continues on. The judge never asks him, would you like an attorney. Buchanan just stands there quietly and says, I want to get this over with. I plead guilty. So the judge says, we have to have a hearing to determine the degree of murder. They call it a degree of guilt hearing. So the judge calls in the sheriff, the medical examiner calls in a few other witnesses, and it takes about two hours, and the judge determines that its first degree murder and he sets

the sentencing within the next hour. So Buchanan comes back for the sentencing after the degree hearing, and he gets sentenced to life in prison. The judge does not say to him before the sentencing, you have the right to have an attorney present. The judge doesn't say that. The

judge is not required to say that. After Buchanan pled guilty and before the degree hearing, it was common practice for a judge to take the defendant back into his chambers and question him about why he's guilty, so that he believes that the defendant is actually pleading guilty because he is guilty, if that makes sense to him. He does it one on one with Buchanan. There's nobody else in the in the court chambers, and it only takes

a few minutes. Buchanan explains why he's guilty. The judge comes back out says, I believe that he is guilty. I don't believe he's been coerced or threatened in any way, and we'll have the sentencing next And so they have the sentencing, and from the time of his arrest to the time that he's on his way back to Jackson prison is less than seventy two hours from Baltimore to getting back in Jackson prison, just that quick.

go into the barn to commit murder. That wasn't his intent. He was trying to escape with the car, and that became a huge issue later during some of the appeals.

of the term that I'm looking for. The gentleman that put the show together, if you will, actually had a band, grand stands built around the gallows, had a military band as an honor guard, had a vendor selling food. It was more of a carnival act atmosphere for this public execution. And when it was over, the public was disgusted by what they saw, and that really turned the tide toward executions in Michigan. And it was a few years later

when the Michigan legislature abolished it. So Michigan has not had had not had a death penalty since the eighteen thirties. And while the Herrick children would have loved to have had that penalty imposed, it wasn't going to happen. The judge could do. Judge Salmon was to sentence him to two life terms in prison, and Judge Salmon made the statement at the sentencing he said, I believe that if you were released, you would kill again.

He didn't begin his appeals until nineteen sixty six, and he had to begin those appeals with the local courts in Ingham County. Judge Solomon quickly denied his appeal. It was denied each time it moved into the next phase of the judicial system, the local courts, the Court of Appeals, the Michigan Supreme Court. Every time it was denied, and it lingered in the courts each time. I have to back up just a little bit and let you know that in the previous arrest, prior to the murder, Buchanan

had never had an attorney represent him. He always just pled guilty, never hired an attorney, was never appointed an attorney. That was not the practice back in the early fifties. And even as he appealed his cases after the murder, ten years after the murder, the only attorney he ever had was an attorney in the Lansing area who literally simply filed some papers for him, never really appeared in

court for him. He never appeared before a judge for any type of an appeal, and once that particular appeal was denied, that was the last that he ever saw

that attorney. So up until nineteen eighty one, twenty six years after the murder, Neely Buchanan had literally never been represented by an attorney in any court proceedings until he filed an appeal with the federal courts claiming violations of the fourteenth Amendment and I think the sixth Amendment, and he was given a new evidence hearing to determine the

degree of guilt or the degree of murder. He's essentially was they were going to attempt to determine if it was first degree murder or second degree murder, or if it was manslaughter. Twenty six years later after the murder, the Herricks had moved on with their lives or the Herrick children had moved on with their lives, and subsequently he was actually given a judge overturned that reversed the decision earlier and said that he should be given a

new preliminary examination to determine the degree of guilt. The evidentiary hearing determined whether or not he should be given a new preliminary examination, and he was going to be given that, and he was appointed an attorney. That was the attorney that I met with in Detroit, who argued for Neely, saying that clearly this is not first degree murder,

this is easily second degree murder or manslaughter. The state's Attorney General's office represented the people and fought to keep Neely Buchanan in jail, saying that this guy waited twenty five years to file a federal appeal. No time's up, time out, It's gone beyond the stages of time. He referred to it as the doctrine of latches, which means that the time has run out. You had your chance to file your appeals years ago, and you never did.

And the judges, they voted in favor of the preliminary examination, given him a new preliminary examination. Well, the state's Attorney General's office appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and the United States Supreme Court was scheduled to hear Neely Buchanan's case in nineteen eighty four or early nineteen eighty five. They were going to hear Neely Buchanan's case, and these

issues were going to be settled. For a case to be heard by the United States Supreme Court, there's some major law that's going to be decided, And that was the case for Neely Buchanan. He was going to get his day and he likely would have been released.

he's not here. Well, Neely's attorney said, where's he at? Well, we can't tell you where he's at. What do you mean you can't tell me? I'm here for an attorney client meeting. So the prison guard did some check in and they finally told him that Neely was in the hospital. So the attorney went and met with him. And as soon as he saw him, he knew. He knew Neely would never he'd never walk out of prison, never ever walk out of prison. He knew that Neely was going

to die. Neelie's health began to deteriorate. At one point, he called for a friend of his. I say friend, a man that he had known through his entire prison life, who had begun in nineteen fifty five as a prison counselor, worked his way up through the ranks and was now the director for the Michigan Department of Corrections, and asked to see him. They had run into each other for years.

Even the prison director knew that Neely was not a threat to society, but he knew that society would never accept him back in their ranks because he had killed two people. And Neely basically, laying on his deathbed in his cell, said, Hey, things are going good. My case is going to be heard before the Supreme Court. Could you get a hold of Frank, meaning the Attorney General, Frank Kelly and see what you can do for me. Well,

the director knew better. Like I said, he knew that that there's no way Neely would ever kill anybody because he was an old man now, but he knew society would never accept it, and so he told He told Neeli, he said, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do for you. And it was shortly thereafter that he'd received word that Neely began and had died in prison, literally months before his case was to be heard by the United States Supreme Court.

went out to his car and sobbed, just cried. I couldn't believe he told me that, but he did, he said, And I don't know if I was, if I was crying for Neely or if I was crying for my dad who had passed away from cancer. So Neeli Buchanan deeply affected Frank Emon and Frank's stance in the end, and to this day is was Neelie Buchanan the same man in nineteen eighty four that he was in nineteen fifty five. And Frank would argue, no, he wasn't, he

wasn't Frank, I'm sorry. Eric Egan, the Assistant Attorney General who handled the case for the state, fought to keep Neely in prison. Were there some issues that needed to be addressed by the Supreme Court? Absolutely? Was the Attorney General's office worried about decisions that the Supreme Court might make. Absolutely, absolutely they were. But they needed those issues resolved otherwise they'd be They'd be brought up again and again and again in other cases. So they needed some case law.

So yeah, they were worried about it. I asked Rick Egan, I said, when you found out that Neely passed away, I said, what were your thoughts. He said there was no joy. There was no joy. He said, we wanted that case to go before the Supreme Court so that some case law could be made. And he said there was no joy when Neelie Buchanan died. He said he called one of the Herrick children, the daughter, and he said, you know, he told her that Neely had passed away,

and he said there was no joy for her. It was just it was just a sad case from beginning to end. It really was, and there was no celebrations.

guy that had a general store. He wasn't incredibly wealthy or anything, but what he did and its result was an incredible part of your book. I want to thank you very much, Rod for coming on and speaking about a slayer waits the true story of a Michigan double murder. For those that might want to take a look at your work, is there a website? Facebook page? How can they contact you or look at you other.

didn't know what their grandfather had done. And they told me that they they actually have a letter from j Edgar Hoover written to Harry Dosberg after the capture.