Murder Michigan

by Gary W. Barfknecht

Book by Barfknecht, Gary W.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

225 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. It has 70 stories, each just a few pages long, describing murders throughout Michigan History. It starts in 1567, before white men set foot in Michigan, with the murder of a Chippewa brave by a Ottawa brave near the Straits of Mackinac. The final story is a mass murder of a family in Farwell in 1982

[Fishface · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was OK, not spectacular. The stories were interesting but the writing lacked zing.

[baggyparagraphs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an obscure paperback that I picked up in a used bookshop (the incredible John K. King Books, in Detroit) for $12. In briefly retelling the stories of 70 murders, the author takes readers through Michigan history: from before the arrival of the French fur traders in the 18th century up to the arrival of serial killers like John Norman Collins, who was convicted of murdering young women in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti in the late 1960s. There were racial riots, labor riots, gangsters, an anarchist assasin (Leon Czolgosz, who killed President McKinley) and even a German spy. But the most incredible story is "The Mad Bomber of Bath." Blaming the loss of his farm near the town of Bath on an increase in school taxes, Andrew Kehoe rigged the school with dynamite. Thirty-eight students and teachers died, and the number would've been greater if not for the fact that Kehoe hadn't wired up enough batteries to detonate all of the explosives that were in place. (He had already murdered his wife.) Then it turned into a suicide mission: Kehoe blew up his own truck when the school superintendent passed near, and both men died, along with three bystanders. In all, 45 people perished on May 18, 1927. Psychopaths have been around forever.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very intresting, it has lots of murder stories and other creepy things! Very intresting!! good fun reads!:)