Filmmaker planning true-crime, history documentary on Michigan killer John Norman Collins
A Michigan filmmaker, who appears to have recently reached his goal to raise $25,000, aims to create a new documentary about decades-old unsolved homicide cases and the man law enforcement has accused of committing them, John Norman Collins.
Collins, 76, has been the subject of new articles nationwide, books and was even a Hollywood movie proposal.
Monday, when Karen Tessler, who went to school with Collins at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsalanti, said she heard about the documentary, it "really hit home." She said she still remembers a passage he read in class that was about death. And, she added, she once asked Collins for a ride home, but didn't end up going with him.
"Whenever I see his name, I just cringe," said the 74-year-old, who has since moved from Michigan to Arizona, adding she is eager to watch the upcoming documentary on him. "If I had gone to class that night, it could have been me."
The Free Press published an investigative series in 2019 about Collins that examined documents and photos from the law enforcement cases, hundreds of news reports over the years, interviewed detectives and forensic experts and brought new evidence to light about the police investigations and never-before-published letters by Collins.
Collins, who has declined interviews, ended a letter to the Free Press: "I hope that you will simply leave me alone."
In his pitch for funding, Andrew Templeton called his proposed movie a passion project and an attempt to tell "in an engaging, informative, and respectful way" what he considers "is an important, and maybe not well understood, true crime narrative."
"This project really grabbed me," he said in a recorded appeal for funds on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. "I've worked on this nights and weekends nearly five or six years now while I was doing other jobs and working in the industry."
It's unclear how much of the proposed film, "1969: Killers, Freaks, and Radicals," will focus on Collins and how much will delve into other subjects from that year, which included a moonwalk, a weeklong music concert in Woodstock, New York, and a "Sesame Street" debut.
The public has long been fascinated with Collins, in part, because he seemed to be an unlikely killer. He was described in the 1960s as a handsome college student. He had been a high school football team captain, rode motorcycles and was studying to be a teacher. His uncle was a state trooper.
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Collins was convicted of one slaying in 1969 — Karen Sue Beineman, an 18-year-old Eastern Michigan University student from Grand Rapids — and was sentenced to life in prison. The killings stopped after Collins was arrested, and he was not prosecuted for the others.
Collins has denied he is a killer, but also has been tied to the slayings of Mary Fleszar, 19, of Willis; Joan Schell, 20, of Plymouth; Maralynn Skelton, 16, of Romulus; Dawn Basom, 13, of Ypsilanti, Alice Kalom, 21, of Portage, and Roxie Phillips, 17, of Milwaukie, Oregon, and, officially, those cases have never been solved.
As a result, he often is identified as a serial killer and considered one of Michigan's most notorious murderers.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Filmmaker planning new documentary on old Michigan serial-killer cases
