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Baby, You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Good Evening. First came the unsettling Ouiji Board prophecy that Robin Adams would die before her seventeenth birthday. When a minister was summoned to rid the house of frightening phenomena blamed on Luigi Board, he was taunted and denounced by a neighbor and suspected Satanist. Thus the die was cast for one of the most bizarre murder cases in Michigan history in nineteen seventy six, when Robin vanished without a
trace from the village of Cairo. Police were left without a body, witnesses, or anything remotely resembling a crime scene. The case went cold for six years, then when a rookie State Police detective was assigned to reopen the investigation. What followed reads like chapters from a Stephen King novel, right down to the claim that the killer's grandmother was practicing black magic to avenge efforts to bring him to justice.
The book that we're featuring this evening is Fruit of the Poisonous Tree, with my special guest, journalist and author Richard Carson. Welcome to the program, and thank you for agreeing to this interview. Richard Carson, thank you for having me.
It's my pleasure.
Thank you very much. I want to make sure that I'm pronouncing the name. Is it Caro or Cairo pronounced the cap?
Yes, here we got it Carol.
Okay. Now, one of the questions I typically asked him, what how did you come to write this book? What, without giving anything away, what was it about this story? Or how did you come to write this book? Frouit of the Poisonous Tree?
Well, it I should mention. Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is the e book which derives from the published version which was called Murder and the Thumb. And the reason for the title change is we did some editing and tried to make the book a little more presentable to people outside the area of where the crime occurred. How I became interested in it. I had worked for the Small Daily in Heuring County, which is the northernmost county in the Thumb of Michigan. I had been there for
fifteen years. During that time, I'd covered two murder trials. But I left the paper, the Small Daily in nineteen eighty one, and we settled in Columbus, Ohio, and I went to work for the Columbus Dispatch. During that time, I was receiving the newspaper that I had left in Michigan, and I became aware that the trial of Melvin Garza, the suspect and eventual accused in Robin's disappearance, was going to be in here In County. Moved from Carroll, which
is in Tuscola County, to the immediate southwest. So now I'm aware of the trial. I read the coverage. I know that Lee McDowell, the post commander in Carol, who I knew was a high schooler in bad Ax, Michigan, where the paper was located, he had reopened the investigation. And further, I was a close friend of the circuit judge in here In County who would hear the case,
so I had some connections to the story. The coverage of the trial really piqued my interest, but believe me, I had no idea what lay ahead.
Certainly, now we talked about Caro, Michigan, and so let's describe this. You talk about it being a village, so let's describe where it is in proximity to say, a more notable, bigger city, and so describe where it is and what type of place really Caro, Michigan is, and it's in its size. So tell us a little bit more about Carow, Michigan before we talk about.
Okay, Well, Caro is a town of under five thousand population. It's located. Don't hold me the specifics here, but I'd say it's about thirty five miles due east of Saginaw. Okay, Carro is an agricultural I mean Tuscola County is an agricultural county, and Caro obviously is a county seat. Caro, of course, is where Robin was working as a live in babysitter when she disappeared, and Carrow's stuck to the village.
It could easily qualify as a city, but the locals wanted to keep it a village, and I think they wanted to keep the village, character of the community, and I think that is why that moved in that direction.
Now, tell us about Robin and Danny Adams, and they moved from Bay City to this rural carrow with and their stepparents are Bill and Millie Timco. So tell us their unofficial foster parents. And so tell us about this arrangement. And a little bit more about Robin and her brother Danny Adams.
Okay, let's they were born in in in Pennsylvania. Uh but eventually uh their mother moved the family to uh to Bay City. Uh the and I don't know if it gets kind of circuitous here uh uh Vera Adams uh uh claimed to be a widow uh and claimed that her husband, the father of Dan and Robin, had drowned in a swimming accident or something that's we're not certainly not sure about that.
Uh.
Uh Vera ran into Bill Timcoe in his travels while she was still in in Pennsylvania, and they kind of became an item. And the book traces how how they met and and the times that they traveled, traveled around the country, and they worked at county fairs and one thing and another usually during that time. Uh Robin and
Danny were with relatives. Vera came from a large, large family, so eventually they moved to Bay City, and Vera was still very much interested in Bill Timpcoe and Bill Uh by this time had married and lived had settled in Carol, and so he would. Bill would visit Vera in Bay City, and he took a liking to Robin and Danny and took them fishing and camping and one thing and another, And Danny had a real attraction to Bill as a father figure.
And UH.
One of the painful situations that developed was when Bill assured Danny that he was not his father, even though he would have liked to think that he was.
So UH.
At that point, the kids are in Bay City, Robinson and Dan He are in high school.
UH and UH.
Danny starts pushing to uh live with Bill and Bill's wife Millie, and their children in Caro and Vera. Their mother resists this at first, but then eventually she gives in and that they moved to Carol and eventually that's where Robin met Melvin Guiza and eventually Danny, which is explained in vivid detail in the book. Danny kind of wore out his welcome with the Timcoes and he ended up they returned him to his mother and she shipped
him back to his grandparents in Pennsylvania. So so so that's that's how that's how the kids got to Carol and h Robin met Melvin's sister Norah, who who eventually had a role in Robin's disappearance, and we can get into that later.
Uh.
At any rate, she introduced Robin to her brother, and that's when their relationship started.
Now, you start this book and introduce some characters early on that are of course very very important to the entire story and to the end and to the trial and every aspect of the story. So let's talk about Dan Miller, because you introduced Dan Miller early on, and then of course he is a central figure in this story as well. And also you talk about the Robin and her brother and the other family members in the Timcos sitting around and fooling around and having an interest
in the occult satanism witchcraft. But it starts off with the Wuigi board, So tell us a little bit about the Ouiji board experience, because I think it's very important to this story later on.
Uh. Well, basically, Cheryl Cheryl Uh uh Tyson Uh was Millie's daughter by a previous marriage.
UH.
And she was just a little bit younger than Robin. And they became real like real sisters.
UH.
Once once the uh the Adams children moved in with the Timpcos and it was Cheryl who suggested that they experiment with Luigi Award uh and Uh. It started out innocently enough. And I don't want to get too much in into the to the paranormal in terms of do I believe these things or not believe them? I leave
that up to the readers. But there there is no question that problems emanated from the Luigia Board experience, not the least of which was the fact that at one point a entity I guess is the best word I can use. She identified herself as Glenda, and she was
someone that they could communicate with with Uisia Board. And in this, I mean, you have two teenage girls here, fifteen years old I think at the time Robin Manben sixteen, and it was just kind of a gleeful little adventure that they were involving themselves in.
But it.
Moved to a dark side and they began to have hear footsteps on the stairs when no one was there, and strange sounds in the attic that had joined their bedroom, and the lights fly she on and off, and it just got completely out of hand. And during during this extended experience with the Ouija board, the girls asked different things about their future, Cheryl about whether she'd marry and have children, and Robin for some reason, asked how long
she would live. And at that point, the Ouija board predicted that she would die before her seventeenth birthday, which was ominous and not totally accurate because she disappeared six weeks before her eighteenth birthday. So once all these phenomena took place in the house, the girls no longer wanted
to stay in their bedroom. They were frightened. So Millie called a local minister and he came to the house to perform I guess you'd call it an exorcism of whatever spirits were complicating everyone's life life in the house. And when when the minister arrived, the neighbor, and the neighbor was was a kind of a strange fellow. His
name was Aubrey Vincent. He was an artist, a painter and sculptor, and he lived a spartan life in a one room cabin that was on property that was right next door to where the Tempicals lived, and he was friendly with the with the kids, and they would sit around the campfire and there was probably a little bit of pot smoking and beer drinking going on because he he kind of lived out of the way and he was off the road, so it was there was an
element of privacy there for kids that kids, typically adolescents, really looked for that. So when when the minister showed up, Aubrey Uh noticed that he sees this man that he doesn't recognize, and he sees that he's holding a Bible, and so he launches a rant and denounces the minister and created a confrontation of sorts, but the Uh the minister shook it off, and Aubrey eventually stopped off and
that was the end of that. But in my frame of reference, by the time you've gone through these various steps, this story is starting to sound really a little bit strange. And I had, as they said, I had seen nothing yet, because there was a lot more down the road that was going to complicate my research and hopefully make the book more compelling and interesting.
Now you talked about Marvin Garza and Melvin pardon me, Melvin Garza, and you talked about a car accident, and you include this very early on in the book because you feel it's important. So and people at the time, like Heather Kate, said that it made a difference. So tell us about briefly about the car accident and Melboyn before the car accident, afterwards, and why it might have made a difference in his life.
This accident, Okay, okay, Well, what happened. Melvin incidentally is a very intelligent and very a very skilled person. He had a builder's license when he was eighteen years old. The car accident occurred. What happened a group of boys, Melvin and his class three of his classmates were involved in a home construction project that was part of their high school experience. And this particular home was not building Carol, but in Mayville, which is to the south of Carol.
I think it's about eight or nine miles. So they pretty much finished this house and there was going to be some of the boys volunteered to come and help their teacher clean up the refuse and things that are left after you complete a construction project. To kind of clean up this. And so the boys were through with classes and they arranged they arranged to go to Mayville and clean up this house and kind of a really
pleased their teacher, and so they did that. Well, one of the boys, and I renamed him in the book for I think good reason, one of the boys drove the other three to Mayville and they did their little project. And they were on the way back and there was another group of students from cass City, which is well it would be let's see, to the northeast of Carol and they too had been involved in this construction project, and they were there and they of course they were
in another car. Well, as it happened, the boys kind of the the Carroll boys left ahead of the Cassidy boys, but the Cassidy boys caught up with them and pulled alongside and kind of challenged him to a drag race, and that commenced and at a high rate of speed and uh eventually Mike Clark is the driver of the car with the Carroll boys. Uh, he sees an approaching car oncoming car and he tries to uh kind.
Of uh uh.
Break and get control of the car because he's going so fast, and it's and he skids into his shoulder and and uh the car then he loses control, it crosses the center and and uh it hits the oncoming car. It wasn't a total head on and it was more or less one side of one car hitting the side of the other. The woman in the car, the older woman, was injured. The driver, Mike Clark, was killed.
He died.
The boys were all thrown out of the car and he died right then and there. Melvin suffered a broken collar bone and some other injuries, and one of the other boys had a broken leg. Melvin and I talked to many many of his friends in forming this impression. They said that he took Mike's death really hard, and that he even went as far in some conversations as to say that he wished it had been him instead
of Mike for whatever reason. And the people I talked to his classmates to each and everyone said that Melvin's personality seemed to change dramatically after that accident. And I did mention the Heather Kates again a pseudonym, and she injected a bizarre dimension into claiming that the young fellow who was killed in the accident was not whatever, not what he seemed to be, and this notion was rejected by anybody and everybody. So I wasn't sure where that
was going. But inasmuch as Heather kates as a high school or practice witchcraft, here we go again. And Heather has an experience leader that we may get into. That really justifies their place in the story.
Now, Melvin Garza comes from a big family and his sister you had already mentioned it. Nora had introduced Robin.
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Melvin So tell us a little bit more about the guards of family mothers. Clara So, tell us a little bit more about the family and how close Nora and Melvin are in age.
Yeah, she was. She had just turned She had just turned seventeen, and that's significant. And I don't know how much legal minutia you want to get into here, but Nora had just turned seventeen when Robin disappeared. And I guess the belief was Melvin broke into the house where
Robin was. After Robin graduated from high school, she took a job as a living babysitter, and after she broke up with Melvin, a breakup that he violently h opposed U, he broke in and beat her up and from from that point on that was a little more I think than two weeks from the time.
That she disappeared.
Uh. The family, the guy's a family. There nine children. Melvin was the second eldest, his older brother Augustine. In fact, his older brother Augustine was in charge of the family while while the parents were in South Texas visiting relatives. At the time that Robin disappeared.
Uh.
No, as I said, she had just turned seventeen. And there was actually a possibility that Robin, that Robin's disappearance or the ultimately as we learned, her murder, could have occurred before Nora turned seventeen, and that would have been significant in terms of the juvenile court jurisdiction and the fact that she might not have been incarcerated, which again we'll get into that the family. Bill Garza was a
self made man. He and Clara started a house I think it was back in the fifties, and one of these deals where they dug a basement and smith block construction and and resided in that and build up the house as they build up the family. And uh uh, it's a good family and and and Bill and Clara are are good people. And and Clara thought the world of of Robin and was completely crushed when the reality of her disappearance came to to the foe. Uh Bill and and uh Melvin. Uh, you know, we're kind of
they had some characteristics in common. And I think that uh as as uh Melvin became an adolescent. Typically father and son didn't always see eyed ie uh and Uh but uh uh Bill was a typical uh Mexican American uh patriarch and ruled the roost and kept order. And with a family that large, you pretty much need a controlling figure you're going to be consigned to eternal chaos.
They were good people. I got to meet them and spend time with them when we visited Melvin in Southern Michigan prison, which is a long, long drive, and so I was with them for many, many hours and got to learn a lot about their family and about them.
Now you talk about Bill and Millie, let's go back just a little bit, because this is very important. Of course, Melvin Garza is a charming guy, about five foot ten, kind of well built, one hundred and sixty pounds for all accounts, you know, pretty sociable guy. Nothing so outwardly weird or creepy about this guy. At some point this relationship sours and Bill and Millie really wanted Robin to stop seeing Melvin. Yeah, so there was that dynamic going
on there. So and so you also point to a couple instances like where there was a Cheryl and Robin shared a diary together and one day that diary is missing. So it just maybe you could tell us a little bit about that story, which probably indicates quite a bit about Melvin Garza.
Yes, and I'm glad you've brought that up, because if if we were able to get into some of these other things, you'll see it patter. But Melvin was Melvin was very.
I don't know.
Exact perfect word to describe, but he he kept track of people that he knew, and he evesdropped, and he oftentimes he would be someplace where he could overhear conversations. Even tried once to rewire a phone so he could he could tap into that. And and I think that the adventure faltered. But Robin. When Robin and Cheryl, as I said, they became almost like real sisters. And ser Cheryl had a diary and she invited Robin to share it.
So that they would both make entries in the diary, and among the entries would be their interest in boys and boys they dated in one thing and another things that you would not necessarily want a current boyfriend to be reading. And mel was was aggressive in the way that and it's it is characterized in the book where Cheryl and Robin came home from school one day and Cheryl's parents were working, and Melvin had invited himself into
the house and was there waiting for them. So it was clear that he was willing to enter the house when no one was there, so he became the prime suspect when the diary disappeared UH, and ultimately the diary
was returned. It was mailed UH mailed back in a package to the rural mailbox without explanation or return address, and he would not admit that it was him that that had the diary, but they pretty well believed that that was the case and this was Melvin's mo And later on there's an incident that might be instructive if we can get to it that dealt.
With the.
Key witness that really broke the murder case and how Melvin was keeping tabs on him. So go ahead, oh sorry.
The other thing was that the show is controlling nature. In this diary, the girls had probably talked about other boys that they had met, but also about smoking and drinking. So I thought it was ironic that Melvin had a real issue with her smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol.
Yes, and.
I've always wondered if that was more just a vehicle for his control of I don't think that he He did not smoke, to my knowledge, although I know there was an occasion of marijuana use which I suspect was involved smoking and that I won't get into that now. But in his father, his father had probably it was a smoker, and then had a I think a lung disease,
and my memory is not perfect on that. But Bill quit smoking and would not let anyone smoke in his in his if they were riding with him in his car. So I don't know if that kind that trait passed off to Melvin or not. I know that Melvin did drink, and I'm more inclined than anything to believe that that was just one of the areas where he wanted to exert control over her, and he made made a big deal out of that. As you realize when you read the conversation that he had with her mother.
Now he has, their relationship deteriorates. They go back and forth like many young people, like many people and love. They go back and forth. I'm going to break up with you, but then they're back together again. But there is an incident where she is assaulted and this is very important to the story. So tell us about the assault and who witnessed it, and just tell us a little bit about that assault.
Uh well, uh, this was of course, they had broken up and I think she had pretty well decided that it was going it was going to be over her. Her close friend Chris told me that she thought at least one of the times that Robin went back with Melbourne was more out of fear than really wanting to rekindle a relationship. What happened is she was alone with the with the little boy that she was caring for, two year old, and the boy's mother was at work, and so she was alone in the house. It was
during the day. It was during the day, and he came to the house and wanted to talk to her. She didn't want to talk to him, she refused, so he removed the screen off the window an open window and climbed in the window and he beat her up. And we're talking fists and we're talking bruises and black and blue and something that you can't just explain away,
but she did. She she was quite upset by it, and I think I think that I know that after that, she told her friend Chris that she she thought that he was that he was capable of killing her, and she was fearful that he would. So, Uh, what happened is she tried to keep the beating from her mother, but eventually her mother.
Her mother.
Pride it out of her, and they went to the police and reported the assault, and that gave rise to the phone call, the intercepted phone conversation. I don't know if you want to get into that, and we can, but sure, let.
Let's get into that phone call.
Yeah, So they had gone to the police, and I think it's significant here. A couple things are significant about this. The domestic violent the enforcement of laws against domestic violence have changed, and they've been strengthened in recent decades. But this was nineteen seventy six, and typically a prosecutor would say, well, they would they've become experienced with the kiss and makeup period, and a lot of women wives, girlfriends, initially when they
were subject to domestic violence would want to prosecute. Then they changed their mind, and of course by now there's taxpayer money spent and time wasted, and so the practice at that time was to allow about a two week cooling off period or whatever or period to see if the heat of passion to prosecute was still there, so
that they wouldn't waste the prosecutor's time. That's quite significant because Robin disappeared the night before she was to return to the prosecutor's office and go through with an assault and battery charge. Now the telephone call, the telephone call was damage control on Melvin's part. So now he's he's uh, he beat he's beaten Robin, and her mother's found out about it. She's seen the bruises and she's angry, and
she prevails and Robin to uh prosecute. Then Melvin missus Adams comes to Carol with a fellow that she was working for his little girls, and and they take Robin to the county Fair and at that time Melvin approaches them. He's there somehow knew that they were there, figured it out and he approaches them and wants to kind of talk to Robin, and you know, I believe that he could see that he might be in trouble and that
maybe he could talk his way out of it. Well, missus Adams would have no part of that, and Robin kind of ducked in behind her, and she denounced him and told him to, you know, leave them alone. So the next day Melvin called her. She was living in Bay City working with this for this gentleman and caring for his little girls, and she was taking sales calls. He was a traveling salesman, and she would take sales calls and she would tape record them to ensure absolute accuracy.
And so she had a tape a tape recorder hooked up to the phone. And when Melvin called her and he was going to try to justify as having beaten her daughter, she taped the whole conversation unbeknownst to him, and there was some the co incidentally, if I throw a little plug in here, my my website Dick Carson dot net, uh, my website has a link to that
entire conversation. And it's kind of kind of scary because he makes a lot of veiled threats during this lengthy phone conversation that he doesn't know what's going to happen to Robin, and he's afraid something will happen to her, and he's trying to encourage Missus Adams to take her back back to Bay City, so that that link is on there as well as a police interrogation of Melvin in the first The investigation was two phases, and this
was the first phase. There's a recording of that, and also a recording of I mentioned a key witness, who is Tim Thomas, who was a friend of Nora's and someone she confessed to, confessed.
Her role in the crime.
Uh, and it's it's a recording of Tim Thomas's testimony of the preliminary hearing where Norah's attorney tries to throw him off but fails miserably. It's quite dramatic, at least in my view.
So, uh, there.
You have the phone call, a recorded phone call which I talked to jurors. Well, I'm getting ahead of the story anyway. The phone call was critical a piece of evidence. I'll leave it at that for now.
Okay, let's let's not jump ahead here, and let's he's got. She's moving around a series of safe houses. That's how much she fears this guy, and her family fears this guy, and other people have intervened. Neighbors who have seen that are concerned for her. So, but there's a letter that she receives, Going to Canada letter, And we won't get into what happens later, but let's just talk about the letter itself. What is it contained, When does she receive it? Tell us about that.
Okay, I think she received the letter. I think it was the friday before the Sunday night that she disappeared, and it was going to get it became labeled for investigative purposes, the going to Canada letter, because in the letter, Melvin said that he was going to go into a community and forgive me. But I'm remembering it's in Ontario. It's a small town that it escapes me at the moment. But at any rate, it was it was a long
ways away. I mean it would be I think it was five hundred miles or something where it would be a really long drive and if you were going to go there on a weekend, you would it would take the whole weekend and then some and so the obviously he did not go and you know, there's different interpretations of that, but the essentially the letter was Melvin sounded
like a web puppy. I mean, he was basically telling her how much he loved her and how broken hearted he was, and how there would never be anyone like her in his life, and that he would that he would go to this quaint little village in Ontario and spend some time there and try to work work through his his grief at having lost the love of his life.
Uh. And it was.
It was a very long letter, and it I think again, I'm I'm tending to jump ahead. If we get into the if we get into the police interrogation that I mentioned is available on the website, it's quite diametrically opposed to what the contents of that letter were.
Okay, now, the letter makes her and her friends briefly and again we won't jump ahead. House she knows this, but what she does is while she's babysitting this two year old, is that she has this letter from Melvin Garza, who has been terrorizing her for quite a while now. So with that she believes that Okay, she believes the essence of the letter in that he is going to be gone for this weekend into crossing the Canadian border
into Ontario, so she'll have the weekend to herself. That's what she thinks and what other people think.
Yeah, her friends said that she dropped her guard, that she dropped her guard, and that she was a less a vigilant than not looking over her shoulder as much as she had been. So and of course again we're jumping ahead, but certain people who will be discussed and later in thought that that may have been a ploy. Melvin always said that that he between the time he wrote the letter and made the decision not to go
to UH. Now this is him talking not to make the trip to Canada, that he found out he was going to have a job that would start on my early Monday morning, which would have made the trip impractical because it would have been hard to get back on time for the job. Now that's you can argue that
different ways, but that was that was the story. But she did think initially, and then there was an observation that you're aware of, But she did think initially that he probably and to go to Canada would be gone and that she wouldn't have to be as concerned about something that he might be doing if Hetty remained in the area.
Now, tell us about the incident itself. We were probably not going to be able to cover this entire book because we've covered this with a great amount of care here so far. But tell us how she has discovered Robin's disappearance is discovered, and who they find in the home, and what evidence, if any, they find at this what we would find later to be a crime scene. So tell us about the incident's self. Who discovers Robin first has disappeared?
Okay, the first did not disappear. Some of the contents did Uh. Okay, she's she's babysitting and the young woman has worked a shift that ends around midnight. And uh so uh Marlene uh, Marlene Davis. It was was the it was the mother of the of the little boy, and she's working a shift that ends around midnight. So she comes home and she the house is locked, and she uh was surprised because typically when she would come home from the shift, Robin would be right there and
she'd let her in. So this surprised her. So she came into the house and there there was laundry. Uh that Rob Robin had been folding the laundry when she left a worker shift. When Marlene thought and the laundry, the job was not completed, which immediately caused her to be concerned because that wasn't like Robin. Robin would finish the job and the laundry would be put away and it wouldn't be there, So what's going on here? And then the purse is laying there with part of the
contents kind of spilling out of it. So Marlene panics initially because she thinks, well, Robin's not there, so Little Billy must not be there either, and so she calls her friend Joan, and kind of the family starts pulling together for where's Robin In the meantime, after Marlene talks to her, Joan Jones Sayers is the name, and then and there's a relationship there. Joan's husband is I believe a cousin of Marlene's at any rate, there's a relationship
for me, a family relationship there. So then Marlene goes into the Little Billy's room and he in fact is there, but there are some things that don't jibe because he's he's in a diaper, the diapers dry, but his pillow is kind of wet as though he'd been crying, and he has no no T shirt Robin. But even in the heat, and they had no air conditioning and it was extremely hot in that August, Marlene recognized that something
was a miss. I mean, the laundry's not finished, and Billie's crying himself to sleep apparently, and he doesn't have a T shirt that he normally does. Something's wrong here. And so of course they eventually commence a kind of a family group search, which turns up nothing, and eventually they have to contact Robin's mother, and the disappearance begins to play itself out with the police involved.
Now the police aren't initially interested, but the family definitely knows that she's gone, that she wouldn't have just walked away, that she didn't run away to California. Marlene calls the Garza Hole home around uh midnight or so, looking for or tell us the time that she calls, and she speaks to Nora, And what does Nora say?
Uh, as I recall and it's been a while since I looked at that, Uh the deal the specific timeframes. I think it was around midnight, uh, and uh, it might have been. I'm trying to think that. It seems to me there were two calls. Joan may have Joan Sayers may have made a call, and uh, and then I think maybe Marlen. I'm not exactly sure. I think there were two calls, and I think that Marlene made one made one of them. And Norah answered at least one of the calls and said that Melvin was I
think she said he was sleeping. Uh, and we wouldn't want to come to the phone or something to that effect. But uh, of course, well again I don't want to get ahead of the story, but she said she said.
She had.
Go ahead.
Nora had said that she that Melvin was sleeping, and what was what was odd and later in retrospect, was that she had said that that he had been sleeping since ten thirty right exactly.
Yes, this, guys, I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah, yes, because it's sound that sounded like a information not asked for sure. In other words, it sounded like the building of an alibi.
Uh.
And and that was Joan Joan, Joan, that was Joan Sayer's call, and she she found that odd right at the time. You know, why is she telling me you know, giving me times you know, he's either sleeping or he's not, or he's either there or he's not. But of what value is it to me to know that he's been home for an hour and a half or so? I didn't ask that. So that was a key point. And the time frames, of course, again jumping ahead, become very significant in this investigation and beyond.
Yes, the other call that you mentioned was I think you talk about Karen Goodru called at four a m. And spoke personally with Melvin.
Uh, yeah, and yes, that's right. He said that that Karen girl called me in the middle of the night and you know he was sleep and then he was going to have to get up early. And you know he kind of passed that off as annoying or something to that effect.
But now the next day Melvin Melvin comes and speaks to Vera and Vera's boyfriend at that time, significant other Bob Cronkite, whose interesting character too because how involved he gets in this case almost right away as well. So tell us about that altercation and what Melvin did say and what Vera said, Well, tell us about that dynamic the next day.
Yeah, well, well he can he came to the house. And in this again, you know, his behavior is always kind of patterned. Uh. You know, he went to the fair to try to damage control of the beating. Then he made the phone call for the same reason. Now he's heard that Robin's missing because that caring girl called
at four o'clock in the morning. And now he's uh going to be the good guy, and he's going to come to the house and tell everybody, you know, you know, find out where Robin is and and just you know, he doesn't know anything about anything. And uh and of course he met with sharp opposition from from Vera and Bob and they weren't having any of him not knowing anything.
And he was then the villy. They summoned the village officer, and I think that the village officer uh took Melvin maybe to the state police post and briefly and then brought him back because he was he was working then, he was on his lunch hour, so I mean, he knew that they were going to accuse him, and he had already started his defense that he knew nothing and was just earnest enough to show up and find out what was going on.
What was his official story initially in terms of having seen Robin that night in question, which was the Sunday.
Night, Well, he lied when the police talked to him. Initially, he lied and said that he had not seen her that night at all. And then during the interrogation, the one that's on the website, he corrects that and he says that he saw her around nine thirty or so.
And of course he it's a kind of a bizarre explanation because he claims that he parked his car some blocks away and jogged over there so that his car wouldn't be there because he knew that he was persona non grat with the family after the beating and everything, and so he didn't want his car being seen there, which again my thought on that is that he was fearful that somebody might have seen something and that he thought he'd better not stick to the story that he hadn't been there at all.
Right now, the what was his demean not his demeanor, but how cooperative was he with police in this investigation initially? And I want to asked this other question too, is that to explain and you do explain this in your book that even though a light detector test is inadmissible at trial, but it is still a valuable tool used by police. So again, tell us a little bit about how integral the light detector test was in this investigation into this case and story.
Well, it was there were two that there were there were two two polygraph examinations, and the first one, Uh, the operator had a feeling that Melvin knew ways to make sure that the findings would be in consequential, Uh, you know, by bodily movements and breathing patterns and different things. So but but he was all in for have submitting to the polygraph, and in fact submitted to the second polygraph, and that was the one where they where the deception
was shown. Then, and I will jump ahead here because it's so closely relevant. His sister tentatively agreed to a polygraph and then balked and would not submit to it because in here was a mistake on her part certainly that she didn't want to discuss events between the hours of like ten pm and midnight on the so called day in question. So in other words, well, if we're not going to talk about the time when we think the crime occurred, what good is this test. So anyhow, that.
Was telling that was telling. Now tell us about in September again, there's about two weeks later, Melvin goes to state police with a letter. He says he purports us from Robin and postmarked Saint Joseph, Missouri. So tell us about this letter and the contents.
Well, the letter, and of course the Saint Joseph, Missouri aspect of it remains a mystery, and it was a clever diversion. Whoever arranged it. I have some theories, but
nothing I could really talk to. At any rate, the letter was that Robin ran away, and that she ran away because she was broken hearted over the failure of their relationship, which of course doesn't make a lot of sense because her friends and the letter that he wrote clearly point out that it was it wasn't her broken heartediness, and it wasn't her his decision to break up, it was hers. So none of this made any sense, but
the fact that it was mailed from Saint Joseph. If if you were going to California, that might not be the most direct route, but at least it would comport with some sense of here to there, and it falls in between. So, and of course the letter, the letter gave the police and forensics people fits because it was hard to it was hard to tie the writing to him or anyone that might have been inclined to assist him. The letter is the letter is in the e book.
The three page letter is in there, so it could be read by anyone who would be interested in that.
So this case goes cold. Marvin hard me. Melvin seems to cooperate. They find nothing in his vehicle really substantial at that time, we're not talking about advanced DNA, talking about DNA really at all being a factor. But he
seems cooperative, and the case goes cold. And then you introduce a central figure in here, a detective Dan Miller, who is impressed it's one day about seeing an officer do something, making arrest with a Thompson submachine gun, and he wants to become a detective despite his.
Yeah he's a small boy. Yeah, he's a small boy. And his family takes a trip to h they lived in in Ubly, which is a small town in the Thumb area and here in County, the same county where the trial was, and his family takes a trip to Jackson that it happened that there was I believe either an escape or a riot or something that probably an escape, and so the the the police had roadblocks and courts.
Dan's as a small boy and here's this officer with this submachine gun, and and it just kind of uh, he thought it was kind of neat in a small boy's perception, and that that is one of the things that he said later in life moved him in the direction of of pursuing a career in enforcement.
Now he's this, he's a novice, and yet they give him this cold case and he, you know, attaches himself to this. And the first thing that he does is he reviews all of the Sergeant Wallner's investigation. But really what he has is not very much evidence at all except a couple of cassette tapes of the phone calls and the letters. So tell us about Dan Miller and why he this case gets a cry into you know, gets a cry into him, and he gets so dedicated and involved with this case.
Well it was I mean, you have to know Dan, he's a very interesting guy. He's very focused. He collects Civil War memorabilia and is quite an authority on Civil War battles and and different divisions of of of the Union. Army and Confederate and so on and so forth. Uh uh he uh Dan is is smart uh and and he's cagey. He doesn't tell you uh more than he wants to. And he he the advantage he had over Milt Wilner, and Milt tried everything and and and at one point is it's in in the book, he almost
it looked like he almost was going to succeed. But uh at any rate, uh Dan used some unconventional approaches and uh he uh uh he spread himself out and made himself known to people the younger that he was younger than Milt Wilner, so that he was able from a generational perspective to relate more to the to the young people that uh uh you know, were parties to this whole uh situation.
Uh and he uh the fact that he.
Uh made himself known and and made himself known to uh uh Sean Zimmerman, who had was a post robin girlfriend of Melvin's uh and she delivered his child, a daughter, uh and she she became a link to uh a person in Carol, another young couple actually in Carol who were friends with Tim Thomas who lived down near Flint. But visited Carol periodically and had a friendship with Nora.
So so that's the fact that that Dan as aggressive as he was, and he left no stone unturned and all this time he's also looking for the body and to no avail.
But so and that.
Looking for the body and looking for a prosecutor. And I don't know if we'll have time to get into this, but it's interesting the the local prosecutor wouldn't touch the case and the reason why and how things played out subsequently made him look pretty smart. But a way, but Dan was an excellent investigator, and he was very careful and and uh uh low key uh uh. And and he once he once he got wind of Tim Thomas. Ultimately, and if you're aware, he was able to arrange a
meeting with Tim and Nora. And of course I don't know if we've if we've covered that yet, but uh, Nora confessed her role in the crime to Tim because she to unburden herself, and uh that's kind of what broke the case ultimately.
It was interesting. Let's let's fixate on that a little bit, because this is again the most crucial aspect of the story in the end is Tim Thomas and Nora and this first confession. Now you talk about the conversation that elicits this confession. She's mad at him, he laughs at her, and then she says some details. So tell us about that actual conversation, because it's interesting how this all comes about.
Okay, Well, Nara was she was a in Mott Community College in Flint to become a dental assistant. And I think it would be typical going from Caro to Flint, that you I mean, it would be not out of the way at all to go through Davison, which is where Tim lived. And Nara really liked Tim. And I don't think that Tim ever had a strong romantic interest in her, but I think they dated and they had fun together. And as I recall, she called him and said that she'd be coming through Davison and she'd liked
to have lunch with him. And so they met and they had lunch, and Narah uh normally is outgoing and fun, and she was subdued and just kind of in a troubled state of mind. That was immediately obvious to to Tim, and so you know, he was asking her what was wrong, and he was kind of kneedling her a little bit, and eventually, you know, she said something to the effect of, what would you say if I told you I was involved in a murder? And he didn't He didn't believe her.
Uh Uh, he didn't believe her at the time. But then and I'm getting ahead a little bit, but uh, his friends and Carol, Uh, they got wind of this, and uh they wanted Uh. It was Kim Herganer right right right, Uh wanted Uh. She was married to one of Tim's real good buddies, and she wanted to get Tim to meet with Dan. Uh Dan Miller, and Tim wasn't really interested until.
Uh uh she uh.
Kim prevailed on him and said, hey, you know, this was not uh some rumored situation. This young woman disappeared and everyone believes that she was murdered. And so then reluctantly she arranged a meeting with Dan at her house with her and her husband there and and Tim there, and and they they got together that way. So that's that's the continuum of the luncheon, the lunch date in Davison, and and how that eventually played out and and kind of made things come together.
It's very interesting how he uses and employees. Dan Miller employs the same kinds of techniques that Melvin Garza would use, manipulating using inside information against another person, taking one bit of information again and using it and revealing it to the other person to create a sort of chaos and see what comes of it. So he was he was great at manipulating these various eventually wanted.
Dan always said he was sticking a pin and see who yells out.
It was kind of one way that.
And of course you're talking about the two uh uh. And I'm gonna try to try to remember the names. There's so many uh uh uh Tanya Gosh, I hope. I'm I just think because I did use the real names.
Uh uh.
Let's talk about Let's because we don't have much time, Richard, Let's talk about more about the unique aspect of with Dan Miller breathing down on these people's necks, with eventually him appealing to Tim Thomas's you know, better nature, his real nature to be able to cooperate, and in his focus, Dan Miller's focus on Nora being this weak link and
the key to solving this case. But like you say, with no body, I mean, the rarity of having a prosecution for murder with no body is very very rare occurrence, and prosecutors are reluctant to go ahead and prosecutions like this. So tell us about the unique situation that was in Michigan at that time, unique to other states, that allowed for the prosecution, and how that prosecution came to be. It was again some manipulation, It was some influence in there to be able to get this done well.
Well, and I can back up just for a second because I hate to be Tanja Fierros and Angi Tories were the two gals, and Dan Angie knew something about procedure that Nara had that was very personal and leave it at that. And uh Dan learned that from Angie and then used it to unsettle uh Tangia in an in an attempt to uh you know, create pressure and stress on Nara, uh because Tangent thought she was probably
Nara's best friend and and maybe more so than Angie. Okay, now now you wanted me to uh you wanted me to get into how the prosecution developed, well.
How how they were able. I mean it's to me it was a very unique situation. I saw that when you have a grand jury to have just one person be a grand juror. So that situation is unique.
Okay, well it's close to unique. There may be one other state in the in the one other state that has a one man grand jury, and there was the one man grand jury was designed to target Nora and to get her to give up her brother, and it didn't work. And as it turned out, the prosecutor, who was an assistant attorney general, since as I earlier mentioned, the local prosecutor didn't want to didn't want to give her immunity, and they felt that was the only way
they were ever going to get anywhere. So Mark Bloomer was a very good prosecutor and left the Attorney General and went to work in Jackson County as the chief assistant prosecutor. Very skilled and he but he couldn't get authorization to take the case until the one of the state police high arabs got to the attorney general and
put pressure on them. So uh. Anyway, the result of the Tanga and uh Angie situation, Dan did get Nara before the county prosecutor, but he would not give her immunity unless she told him her role, and she wouldn't, so that ended that. So uh, the UH once once she went before the judge UH. And this is the this is part of the reason for the title of the book. Uh Nara was given UH transactional immunity to testify after she stonewalled, and and and UH exercised her
Fifth Amendment rights to not testify. So at that point again she stonewalled. Even though she had immunity, she stonewalled, and the judge obviously knew she was lying. But the judge made an error, and that was that he was willing to issue a warrant for her arrest in spite of the fact that she had been given total immunity.
And that.
Was something that I discovered in my research that had never ever come out. And as a result, they were able to arrest her. Now, if her attorney had been on the ball, he was not the attorney that was representing her at the one man grand jury, but who represented her subsequently. If he'd been on the ball and read the transcript of the grand jury, he would have known that she was immunized and he could have got
her out of jail. But I think he kind of took the shortcut version and he missed that, so they were able to keep her in jail, and of course that creates an enormous pressure over time, and that led her to the point where she took them to the area where the body had been buried. Right, So, am I getting too far off course? Or is that kind of where you wanted to head?
Well, you know, that's where we were going, but we skipped over was the And again we only have about ten minutes. So what I wanted to talk about was one of the more dramatic things that happens at this trial. And what we've almost the audience almost forgets and almost as a reader, we forget about the young boy that Robin was babysitting that evening, that was traumatized now as a much older boy and he's at this grand jury. So I thought this was one of the most profound
things of your book. Aspects of your book. Tell us about this Billy Junior, Billy Timco And.
Okay, Billy, Now I understand Billy, Billy is not the little billy that was that Robin was babysitting.
Uh.
Billy was part of the Timco family and he was with her.
Uh the night that.
Uh Billy Timco was with Robin, Uh the week Uh the weekend that she disappeared. He was with her, I think it was the night before and he was in the house with her, and they and he testified that they saw Melvin's car driving by the house. Therefore he's not in Ontario.
Uh.
Bracebridge, by the way, it was the name of the young uh town into Ontario. Uh so uh and uh Billy uh gives the they not only did they see Melvin's car, but then they went outside the house they thought they saw a prowler and Robin thought that Robin actually said, uh, they were It was a little strange to describe this. There was a separate garage, uh. And the garage doors were open, and of all things, and it's kind of rare for garages in my experience, there
was a window on the back wall. They're usually on the sides. And so Robin thought that she saw Melvin looking through the back window of the garage. And then and Billy Timcoe was not able to say that he saw that, but that he did know that someone had was back there and had run off. So and and in court that there was a concerted effort by the prosecutor to get Billy to testify that she had said
it's Melvin, but anyway, so exactly what you wanted. But Billy, incidentally, and we haven't touched on near the weirdness in this story, but Keenny Garza Augustine, the older brother who was in charge of the family when the parents were away and Robin disappeared teeny, died on the twenty third of February in nineteen ninety three. Billy Timcoe Junior died on the twenty third of February in nineteen ninety four, a year apart. And the book is full of those bizarre coincidences that
just seemed to me it's hard to judge. As skeptical as you may want to be, it's hard to pass those things off as just happening. Uh. Did I cover that well enough for you?
Or I think so. The The other thing is is that through the dogged effort of Dan Miller, and which you again portray in such a heroic way in this in this book, and his dogged dedication to this case. And finally we have the conviction, uh many years later of Melvin Garza for this first degree murder? What was the sentence for? How How did did the courts dispose of with Nora Garza.
Okay, well that was that was another complicated mess. But they the deal, the deal that caused her to be willing to take them to the area where and she did not, by the way, actually find the burial site. But as you know, and we all know, a wooded area will change its characteristics significantly over a period of eight years, so it's understandable that she might not be able to walk right to the spot where they had where they had buried the body. But that was the deal.
The deal was to give her a break if she would, if she would take them to the area or take them to the body. But they let her off with at least getting them to the area, and ultimately, and I won't go into all the details, but ultimately they found the body. And so therefore she was entitled to
some consideration. But again there was a judge, and rich Kenoblock, who was a known rich since he was thirteen rich you know, was bound by the by the uh the law to make certain demands of her in exchange for
accepting her plea. So they they got into a little bit of a of a run around there, and she bulked for a while, but eventually she came around and and told the judge judge what he wanted to know my personal opinion and I is that she was not totally truthful, but that only she and her brother would really be the ones to know where she wasn't being truthful in terms of her participation in the actual disappearance and murder.
What's again, one of the most profound moments in your book, and will use this as to wrap up in this next couple of minutes, is the that they push her on the staf and to say that when Melvin arrives, Robin is in the trunk, she helps him bury the body. But they ask her this question that she does not want to answer, and that is was the grave predug.
Yes, and.
Mark Bloomer had gone to extraordinary links. He had actually brought an archaeologist back to the area and had him reexcavate a like sized hole that would be the same dimensions as the one from which they recovered the body, so that he determined how long it would take to not only dig the hole, but to if it had been predug to bury the body and be visible in the carro area soon enough to kind of begin to
form the basis of an alibi. And it proved. He was very gratified that she was willing to finally give that up because he had dragged this poor guy a hundred over one hundred miles and it put him to work digg in this hole. So, but bill ovis the archaeologist, a tremendous guy and a fabulous physical condition. It didn't really bother him that he had to dig another hole. If I could mention one thing Dan that I think readers would find very interesting. After Melvin was convicted, Tim
Thomas had a series of accidents. They were uncharacteristic. I mean, Tim's a big husky guy, a hunter, fisherman, you know, he's a man's man. And it wasn't like him. He cut himself with a chainsaw and it fell through a glass garage window and they nearly bled to death. And so he was, you know what's happening here? I mean, all of a sudden, I'm having all these injuries. Tim was a superintendent of a parts plant in Flint. One of his workers was a Mexican and he was very
close to this fellow. And the fellow said, I don't think this is just happening. I want you to meet someone and he took Tim to this medium, and the medium said that Tim Thomas was a victim of black magic that was perpetrated by the killer's paternal grandmother. And her name was Na Tivvy god Oli Veres and she died and I believe, oh, let me think. I think
it was seven or eight, living in South Texas. She had lived for years in Carol and she was known to practice what is called brewer rhea, which is Spanish for black magic. She was a full blooded az Tech Indian. She was not Mexican, but her husband or her first husband, who would be Melvin's father's father, had died young and she'd remarried, so at any rate, there was that aspect. And I knew that Tim Thomas was kind of up right guy that would not be telling me these things
fantasizing anything. These things really happened the way he described them. And whether or not the medium was dead on accurate, I'll never know, but that's what she said.
Yeah.
Well, I mean this book we just really touched on some of the drama and really didn't go into the really determined, incredibly determined effort by Dan Miller and other police to be able to and prosecutors to be able to finally get this Melvin Garza, which it seemed that everybody knew it was guilty from day one, to finally bring him to justice and also justice for Robin Adams, to find out really the truth of what actually happened
that night in August nineteen seventy six. For those that might want to contact you, could you give your website one more time, please, Richard.
Yeah, it's Dick Carson, d ICKCA RSO and lowercase dot net okay, and all pictures of Melvin, pictures of Robin, the links that where you can here Melvin's conversation with Robin's mother and also his police interrogation and you can hear Tim Thomas's very exceptional cross examination where the lawyer did everything in his power to confuse and trip him up and got nowhere.
So yeah, so.
Is there anything else? I don't know what our time frame is here, but I was going to enjoyed this.
It's been very good and I want I want to thank you very much Richard for coming on and talking about Fruit of the Poisonous Tree. It's a fascinating story and we just touched on a little bit of the incredible aspects of this story. So again, Fruit of the Poisonous Tree, you want to thank you very much, Richard, and you have yourself a great afternoon.
Okay, thank you so much. Dan, it's been my pleasure.
Thank you, Bye, good night,