GRIM PARADISE-Rod Sadler

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never caught. Now in Grim Paradise, true crime author Rod Sadler of Killing Women delves into the secrets of one of Michigan's most perplexing murder cases. Offering an in depth and suspenseful account of the long standing mystery, he poses the question, could advance DNA technology lead to the identity of the Mackinaw Island murderer, as it did recently in

the case of the Golden State Killer. Find out in Grim Paradise, the cold case Search for the mckinaw Island Killer with my special guest, retired police officer, journalist and author Rod Sadler. Welcome to the program, and thank you once again for this interview.

the Grand Hotel. It's absolutely gorgeous. But this particular vacation destination has been there for well over one hundred years. It's known mostly because there are no vehicles allowed on the island. In eighteen ninety eight, town council or the village council outlawed the horseless carriage, and of course there are fire vehicles and an ambulance and a police vehicle and some public service vehicles. Beyond that, transportation around the island is by foot or by horse and carriage or

by bicycle, and that's what makes it so charming. It's just a beautiful, beautiful place. It's got geologic outcropping, it's got all sorts of touristy things in town to do, great restaurants, Fort Mcinawe's on the island, you can tour that. It's just really a perfect vacation destination. And violent crime on Macinaw Island is virtuallyheard of, really, and so that's the setting for this murder, this particular murder in nineteen sixty of a dearborn widow.

in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. It's visited by people from all around the world every year and it's a sight to behold. It's absolutely beautiful.

friendly in the same sense to people. She had two kids, a son and a daughter in their twenties early twenties, and she came from a large family down in the Nashville, Michigan Hastings, Michigan area is where she grew up. And she originally was going to nursing school and had dropped

out of that and started her family. And when this particular, I hate to term it as an event, when her murder occurred, it had been three years since her husband's death, and the trip to Mackinaw Island with her daughter and son in law and his sister, she was so looking forward to because she hadn't really done anything in the past three years for herself and so for this short vacation, she was really looking forward to it.

trip to the Mackinaw Island. Tell Us who was with Francis and people that were in the family group and also where they were their destination on the island.

They got up their early Saturday morning, they were only staying the weekend, and they went to a restaurant because the fairies, the passenger fairies, weren't running until eight o'clock, so at eight o'clock they boarded the passenger ferry and they got over to the island. Now, Wesley's mother was already on the island and had rented a cabin at

British Landing, and they had planned on everybody staying there. Well, missus Lacey decided that she didn't want to put anyone out, and she told them that she was going to to stay at a hotel and so she stopped at the first hotel was literally at the end of the pier, and they weren't sure they were going to have a room.

They wouldn't know until like eleven o'clock, and she didn't want to wait, so she took a brochure for that particular hotel and she put it in her purse, and then she walked across the street to the Murray Hotel and they had a room available and she paid. In nineteen sixty, she paid five dollars and some cents for one night's stay, and she told kay that you know, after a day of sight seeing that evening, hey, I'll walk out to British landing tomorrow morning and meet all of you.

So she got to the end of Main Street and continued on around the west side of the island on a boardwalk which was in place back in nineteen sixty and she was going to be at the British Land and at about eleven o'clock that's when they were expecting her. So at eleven o'clock she doesn't show up and the family begins to get concerned. They wait until one o'clock she still hasn't shown up, and at that point they decide, hey,

let's notify the police. Wesley's half brother was also there with his mother, young man by the name of Marvin, and Marvin called the Murray Hotel right away at eleven when she didn't show up, and they said that she had already checked out, and so he left. He left British Landing on a bike and planned on probably finding Francis along the roadway on the west end of the island, but he did not. He was not able to locate her,

and so they contacted the Michigan State Police. The Michigan State Police had a trooper assigned to the island during the summer. There was actually three of them assigned in different shifts. At that time. There was one trooper on the island and he rode a bike out to British Landing and his first thought was, hey, missus Lacy's she's probably lost. She's on a trail here somewhere, She's probably lost. But his first concern was, hey, let's make sure she

didn't leave the island. So he called the Mcinaw City Police. Mckinaw City is at the tip of Michigan's Lower Peninsulas where the ferries run out of and they checked and made sure that the vehicle that she had come in with Wesleyan k was still there. He also had the local police, the Mackinaw Island Police check her hotel room and they actually found six pack of Carling black label beer under the bed, but she was not there. They checked with the front desk. The front desk said she

had left her luggage there. They found a key on the front desk that her room, so they assumed that she left her luggage there and was probably going to come back for it before she left the island. That was standard procedure people that were going to spend the day on the island, you know, rather than tote their luggage around with them all day, they leave it at

the hotel and they pick it up later. So her luggage was still at the Murray hotel, and so they they searched all day, all day, into the evening, and up until eleven o'clock at night. And by that time the trooper was certain something was amiss and he had

to contact his supervisors. So he made a phone call over to his supervisor, who was insane ignas just five miles across the water to the mainland, and because it was so late, he said, Hey, we'll be out tomorrow with a contingent of men and we'll search the island again. And so that's how this all got started.

missus Lacy at all. And then the theory became that maybe she had fallen into the water, or if she was suffering from depression. It couldn't rule out the possibility that she might have harmed herself. So they were looking at all different avenues of all different explanations for why she might be missing.

that she came up missing. They looked at seasonal employees because Mackinac Island has a huge transient population in the summer of employees that work at the hotels and the souvenir shops and take care of the horses and things like that. This was during the Chicago to Mackinaw Yacht Race, which is an annual event. It coincides within a week of the port here on the Mackinaw Yacht Race, and so the island is literally flooded with tourists during those

two particular weekends. It is during those two weekends Macinaw Island is considered the yachting capital of the world. And it was on the weekend of the Chicago to Mackinaw Race that missus Lacy came up missing. So, in addition to the tourists and the seasonal employees and the regular employees, and the island natives and the people on the boats. The police literally were overwhelmed. There was just so many people coming and going from that island.

You know, if you're innocent, can we look in your room? And Strantz said yeah, So he took him over to the hotel. They searched his room and Strants had some very odd things. He had a newspaper article about women protecting themselves. He had some drawings of some women that he had done. His suit coat was and when they asked him about it, he said he got caught in the rain on Saturday and it hadn't dried out yet. That they thought they had some blood spots on one

of his shirts. It turned out that that was just paint. But he just wasn't all there, according to the police reports, and they didn't have enough to hold him at that point, but Sprouto made some mental notes about strants. In other words, he said, we'll revisit strants again. Maybe this is the guy that's responsible for Missus Lacy's disappearance. So they don't have enough to hold strands. Anthony Sproto is pretty certain that he's involved in Missus Lacy's disappearance somehow, and so

they release him from questioning. He was never arrested at that point, but as the investigation goes on, Sprato gets a tip, a very valuable tip that leads sadly to the discovery of Missus Lacy's body. And that tip, if I can get into that, came about from a couple on the island who weren't supposed to be there, and by that I mean they were having an affair. Nobody

was supposed to know they were there. And on Sunday morning, the day that Missus Lacey came up missing, they arrived on the island at about nine point thirty and they rented a bike because that's the only transportation, and they started some sightseeing and they rode around the west end of the island and as they neared an area where there's a large gate that's flanked by two cobblestone pillars, they noticed personally and along the side of the road,

and so they stopped and picked it up, and inside was the identification of a woman named Francis Lacy. Now understand that she hasn't been reported missing. This is on Sunday morning, and it's about eleven am. And as they stop, they hear some lumbering around in the brush on the inside of the roadway. On the outside of the roadway is Lake Huron, because it's a coastal roadway, and they hear this lumbering around and they don't pay any attention to it. They think it's a large animal. And they

see this purse. They see the identification of a woman named Francis Lacy. And so they find a brochure for the hotel that's at the end of the pier that she had sucked in to her purse, and they said, well, we'll go back to the hotel and we'll find her and we'll give her purse to her. Well, they go back there and Missus Lacey didn't stay at that hotel, if you remember correctly. So the hotel says, no, we

don't have anybody here by that name. And so they see that missus Lacy's from Dearborn and they're from Detroit. So they said, we'll just take it back to Detroit with us and we'll track her down there and give it to her rather than try to find her on the island. So at the end of the day they leave the island. Jump ahead four days. It's now made national news that dearborn widow is missing on Mackinaw Island and her faces all over the newspapers and the TV.

And they see it and they recognize the name. Hey, we've got this lady's purse. So they call the state police. And I'm giving you kind of the abridged version here. Yes, they called the state police, and the State Police go back to the location where they found the person. That's where they begin to zero in their search for Missus Lacy, and sadly, that's when they find her body. She'd been

there for four days. And the theory is, and it's probably correct, the lumbering around the large animal they thought they heard they probably had just interrupted the murder of Francis Lacy. That was probably the suspect getting away.

When they found her body. Well, that the officer, the first officer they got on the inside of the gate, and he noticed an old overturned a boat, and he went up to that and looked under it, and he found a plastic like a shopping bag and had one shoe in it a woman's dress shoe, and there was a woman's dress shoe laying next to the bag, so

obviously someone had concealed those there. And as he looked a little bit further into the brush, understand that this small cliff is covered with cedar trees and rocks and brush, and he notices a tree down with it looks like some branches are propped up against it. And as he looks closer, he sees human hair and he discovers missus Lacy's body. She is laying face down. One of her arms is twisted up behind her back, her clothing is pulled up to her shoulders. She has quite a bit

of advanced decomposition because it's the hot summer. Her body's been out there for four days, so there's some decomposition going on. And as they turn her over, they discover that she has been strangled with her own panties.

the investigation. That was of course, this was before the advent of DNA, so that was the forensic evidence that the police had was these hairs, and those were sent to down to the crime lab in Lancing. Interestingly enough, the crime lab in Lancing was part of the Michigan Department of Public Health and not a part of the

Michigan State Police. So while some of the evidence was taken to the State Police post, some of the other evidence, the forensic evidence was taken to the Michigan Department of Public Health to be analyzed.

it's just a very tragic situation. You're right.

He was used the old cliche from an old Harry Chapin song, job man, that's what Paul Strantz was. He did odd jobs around the island, and so that a lot of the a lot of the residents on the island were taken aback by his arrest. That didn't last long, though, because Paul Strantz was released almost as quickly as he was arrested. They realized they just didn't have the evidence to hold him.

finish the job, if you will. They did recover the hair off the body and in missus Lacy's stomach, they found, and this is how they determined that she likely had breakfast at the Murray Hotel. She had canilope pancakes, bacon, and coffee in her stomach, and so as part of the investigation, the investigators went and they searched all the restaurants on the island to see who served canilope, and there were only two or three if I recall correctly,

and one of those was the Murray Hotel. And so they showed a picture to the waitress and she said, well, she looks familiar. She said, there was a woman that came down here with glasses at about eight thirty, but we didn't have gas in the stove yet, so they had a gas stove and so they told her she'd have to come back. So she came back at about nine o'clock and there was a woman that had pancakes

and bacon and cantiloap and coffee. And so police do theorized that that in fact is where she had a breakfast. And the reason that that's important is because they were able to determine what time she finished that breakfast and likely started walking out to British Landing.

And you mentioned the Starved Rock murders in Illinois. So not to go down this rabbit hole of other information, but there's a reason why police officers, Michigan State Police are looking at the Starved murders in Illinois for a connection with the Francis Lacy murder.

And without again, without going down that rabbit hole, police theorized, hey, it's another murder in a state park in another state close to Michigan, there's a chance that it might be related to this particular case, and so they looked into the Starbrock murders, albeit briefly. They also looked at killing in Minnesota that turned out to be a like a contract hit. An attorney had paid some guys to murder

his wife. That was the Thompson murder, and a couple of the people in that particular murder had ties to Michigan. One of them, in fact, was living in Lansing, Michigan, and his mother he was actually from I think it was Alden, Michigan, which is just very close to the bridge to the Mackinaw Bridge, which means it is very

close to Mackinaw Island. So there was that connection. They also looked at a serial killer, I hate to use the term famous serial killer, but a very well known serial killer by the name of Hubay and Morris who went on a murder spree from the west coast to the east coast and actually traveled through Michigan. And so they were looking not only at locals and transient population and employees on the island, but they were looking nationwide for a connection to this murder.

that was very interesting they couldn't rule out. I really don't think they could really assess those statements so well since they weren't certain about the information that was imparted to media one way or another.

hadn't screamed her. So they had all these different statements, and then when they confronted these people other than Paul Strantz, who was a little different. You know, they all said, oh, you know, I said that, you know, just to kid around with my friends. There was another guy down in Detroit that got arrested for domestic abuse or something like that, and he had made the statement he had killed Francis Lacy, and so they went and interviewed him and he said, oh,

he said, no, I didn't kill her. He said, I'm you know, I'm down on my luck. And I thought if I said something like that, I might get some attention. So you know why people would do that, I have no idea, but there was a whole list of people that did.

And so nowadays, if there's a good murder suspect, sometimes they won't even polygraph that person just because a psychopath is able to compensate in his answers and pass that test. And so a polygraph isn't allowed evidence in Michigan anyway. It's another tool in the investigation to point you in the right direction. But they did. They polygraphed a lot of people in this case, and some of those people were cleared. Paul Strantz, they couldn't tell one where or

the other because of his emotional state. So while they did clear him on the day of the murder by checking his alibi, when they gave him a polygraph a couple years later, they couldn't tell one where or the other if he was responsible.

called the police. Well, the baggage Dad mac match Day a bag that was found on the docks up on the island, and so the police seized that and they began to search for this guy, thinking that, hey, you know, he could be a suspect here because he quit right after missus Lacy came up missing. And he was kind of a cantankerous person, didn't get along with a lot of people, drank a lot, and so they were following up on leads on him pretty hard. Harold asked was

his name? And they actually found Harold. Indiana State Police found him, Well, I say found him. He heard that the police wanted to talk to him. He heard it in the meeting. Yeah, And so he called the Indiana State Police and said, hey, you guys want to talk to me or the Michigan State Police wants to talk

to me, and he made himself available to him. So they went and they interviewed him, and while his answers were very vague, they did ask if he would submit hair samples, which he did, and they took him back. He actually offered to go back to Mackinaw Island to clear his name, and so they flew him back there. Three detectives and him flew back to Mackinaw Island from Indiana and he was able to clear his name. They were absolutely certain that he was not involved in the murder.

And this was just like two or three months he was arrested, two or three months after the murder of missus Lacy. It was in November he was arrested. So they're taking this statement from him, and he says that he had been on Mackinaw Island. Well, the officer that was interview him knew about the murder, so he contacted the investigators up on the island and they said, reinterview him and pin him down on a date about being on Mackinaw Island or see what you can find out.

So they reinterview him and he says, oh, oh, no, I didn't say Mackinaw Island. I might have said Fox Island, which incidentally is in Lake Michigan, not Lake Huron. But he said I was on Fox Island. I didn't say Macinaw Island. And so they gave him a polygraph and

he passed it. But on the same along those same lines, they asked him to submit hair samples, which he did, and the laboratory scientists that did the analysis the hares that were taken from missus Lacy's body, he compared those with the hairs from Cleon Brown and he could not eliminate Cleon Brown as a suspect because there were just too many characteristics that were the same.

their houses from downtown now we're taking carriages. Everybody was in fear because nobody knew who the killer was or if he was a local. And so as the investigation went on, you understand that they bring in let's say, twenty five troopers and detectives from around the state to work this case, because it's really a high profile case.

Mackinac Island in the tourist industry is huge, and so they bring in all these troopers and all these detectives, and as tips begin to fade and information comes in slower and slower, crime doesn't take a holiday around the state and so these troopers and detectives that were temporarily assigned of the island were starting to get sent back to their home posts, if you will. And basically the investigation is now relegated to two or three read detectives

from the Saint Ignas post and that's it. That's what they had to work with. And as this went on and on, fewer and fewer tips came in.

And some of these tips were a little far fetched, but they had nothing else to go on, and so they are obligated to follow up on every tip. They're trying to find a killer, and it just there was a point where just all the tips just stopped and there was nothing more to work with.

go on. I'm certain that he reviewed the entire police report as I have, and figured that probably there was two things that could help in this investigation that may help, and one was to release to the media and to the public the fact that missus Lacy's watch was missing and had been missing since the murder that was never made public at all, And so he released not only a description of the watch but the serial number two maybe in hopes that someone would find in grandma's old

jewel box or grandpa's old jewel box a similar watch that they could match the serial number two that did not pan out by the mid two thousand's. Actually, you know, back in the late nineties eighties, criminal profiling had started, and so detective Sexton had not only the FBI offer profile of the killer, but also a profiler with the

Michigan State Police, and their profiles were strikingly similar. Basically, they said that the killer was likely eighteen to nineteen years old, that she was not missus Lacy would not have been in fear of him. She had no reason to suspect that he was suspicious because she's on Macano Island, you know, so nothing happens on Mackinac Island. And it was a very rapid They described it as a blitz style attack. That he had to be strong enough to pick her up and carry her body up behind the

gate because it was not dragged up there. They offered some insight into what his mental state was, given how her clothing was arranged or disarranged, and the fact that her watch was missing, which is often a key element to a serial killer, and that is they take a momento to remember and relive the experience that they have just committed. And that's why oftentimes you'll find a serial killer takes that momento if you followed the news at all. Lately,

there's a reinterest in the BTK killer. They're looking for momentos that he took that he has now said that he buried on his property, and they've actually found some, and that's a key element oftentimes to a serial killer. He'll take that, he'll take that little prize. And it was the same way with Don Miller in my last book. He took some momentos from his victims. So I think that the watch was probably that momento that the killer took.

And sometimes they'll take that and they'll relive the experience. Sometimes they'll take it and they'll give it to someone that they care for, and that person never has a clue where it came from. So it's an interesting situation when that happens.

and goes and interviews him in prison. Let's talk about what you call a new person of interest and why who is this person and why he became a person of interest.

that murder in two thousand and one. That case had been cold for that long prior to that came across his name and someone had suggested that I write a book about him, and I thought, well, it might be interesting, But there was already a book written about him, and so I thought, well, I'll look at this nineteen seventy three murder that he was convicted of. Well, it turns out that his first arrest was in nineteen sixty one,

just one year after the Lacey homicide. He was twenty at that time, which would have put him eighteen or nineteen years old at the time of the Lacey homicide. He also in digging into his background. A year before the Lacey homicide, there was a newspaper article when he got married where he tells the reporter that his college plans after he's married is to go to the Michigan Institute of Mining in Technology, which is in hot and Hancock, Michigan.

It's Michigan Tech nowadays that's in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. So he clearly has understanding of Michigan's northern territories, if you will. He has a blonde to brown light brown to blonde colored hair. In between the murder that he was eventually convicted of, there was another murder of a sixteen year old girl in the Midkin area, and the method of operation is basically identical to the Francis Lacy homicide. He was at the time of the first arrest in nineteen

sixty one. He actually did not go to Michigan Tech or the Institute of Mining and Technology by that time, he was going to the University of Michigan in ann Arbor. Well in the police reports, and I will say that all of the police reports were redacted, so there were no names for me to follow up with, but many of the people that were interviewed were University of Michigan students who were working on the island for the summer, and so well, I can't say with any degree of

certainty that he was involved in the Lacy homicide. I certainly think that there's enough information that he should be looked at as a person of interest. And that's where we're at with that. He died last year in prison in August of last year, So if that evidence can be located, then at least they have a new name to begin with. Does it sound like, yeah, maybe I'm stretching it. No, I don't think I am. I think

that this is how you solve a cold case. You go back over the evidence, You look at what you have, and you look at what you maybe have overlooked. And it may be as simple as the color of a person's hair, you know, it could be anything. They've had sixty three years to solve it and they haven't done it yet, So why not look at this guy? And I think the Cleon Brown could be another legitimate person of interest to.

this is not the couple that found the purse. There was another couple, yes, who had started off on a carriage ride, and so when police interviewed them, they asked him, hey, what did you see along lake Shore Road because they were out there between like nine thirty and eleven, and they said, we only saw two things on lake Shore Road. We saw a couple on a tannem bike, which is the people that found the purse, and we saw a

man eighteen to nineteen years old walking along. They give a description and he's walking with his shirt undone open shirt, and so that fits, you know, it fits not only with the age of mister Brown and the person that I name at the end of the book, but it fits with the criminal profiles done by the state police

and the FBI too. So I think that those people on the bike, while they missed, just missed the murder of Francis Lacy, the other couple in the carriage ride probably saw the killer that morning.

robbery and then stole her car. And so that's he went to prison for that, and he served I think seven or nine years of that sentence before he was released.

was that severe, and someone had bitten down a license. Well, it turns out they searched his van and they obtained a bunch of trace evidence from inside the van. When he was at his preliminary examination for that murder, the search warrant was brought up and the fact that the deputy's statement, the detective's statement in the search warrant did not match the statements from some witnesses, and so the

judge threw it out. He said it was an absolute blatant error, and he threw that search warrant out and the case collapsed. And so to this day, her murder remains unsolved, although they suspect without any doubt that was responsible for her death.

Michigan in Claire, Michigan called Cops and Donuts. Yes, it's a vaguely owned by cops and they carry my books there and several of the of the smaller bookstores around northern Michigan I've reached out to, including the Island Bookstore on Mackinaw Island. So any polis you can buy books, they should be able to order it for you.