Maralynn skelton

March 23, 1969

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Sharon Santucci answered the phone at 4:00 in the afternoon. Her friend Maralynn Skelton was on the other end of the line asking to meet her at McKenny Student Union on Eastern Michigan University’s campus. After waiting a while for her friend, Sharon grew anxious but continued to wait, thinking Maralynn would call the front desk of the union from a payphone, and leave a note for her, saying where she was. Maralynn had told her she was planning to hitchhike to the union—something that made Sharon uneasy. She was hyper aware that there had been a string of recent abductions and murders of young women in the area, every newspaper warned local college women to be cautious; a pit of worry blossomed in Sharon’s stomach for her friend.

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Sharon contacted the police later that night, hoping to file a missing person report. The Ypsilanti police refused to file the report, stating it was out of their jurisdiction. The Michigan State police refused as well; Sharon was not an acceptable source to file a report as she wasn’t related to Maralynn. Maralynn’s parents were also not helpful. They weren’t at all concerned for their daughter’s wellbeing, believing she was off with some of her “hippy friends”, probably doing drugs.

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It was no surprise then, that Maralynn’s mother, Helen Skelton walked into the Ypsilanti police post the Monday after her daughter disappeared, furious that her daughter’s boyfriend, Michael Millage, had filed a missing persons report the day before at the Wayne County police department, and hardly worried about her daughter being missing. Helen told the police her daughter was angry that her family was moving to Flint. She and her husband had hoped the move would remove Maralynn from her friends’ bad influence. However, they had no control over their daughter, and she refused to leave with them. Instead, she was pushed closer to the very people they tried to get her away from. Helen explained that Maralynn had a problem with drugs that had started when she was 13, and that she owed some of her friends money. Downplaying her daughter’s disappearance, Helen explained to the police that her daughter had run away before, but she had always come back.

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March 25, 1969

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11:00 am seems like the time a surveying crew would be getting ready to take their lunch break. 11:00 am was the time Maralynn Skelton’s nude body was found lying on her back in the newly completed subdivision in the rural outskirts of Ann Arbor. A piece of blue cloth stuck out of her mouth and covered half of her face, like a grotesque veil. Her body was mangled, welts and bruises covered her breasts, abdomen, and thighs. A garter belt was tied around her neck and her right eye socket was crushed; this blow was ultimately determined to be the fatal one.

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An 11 inch branch stuck out from between her legs. It was her killer’s last disgusting effort to humiliate her. Douglas J Harvey, the sheriff was in charge of the investigation, would later remember all of the girls having had something shoved in their vaginas and mouths post-mortem. This detail is reminiscent of a murderer with an intense and violent hatred for women.