Oakland County Child Killer: Four Bizarre Unsolved Murders

Victims of the Oakland County Child Killer in Michigan during 1976 and 1977.

Between 1976 and 1977, the quiet suburbs of Oakland County, Michigan, became the stalking ground for a predator who would become known as the Oakland County Child Killer.

There were four gruesome murders of children, with each body posed in the snow. The community was terrorized, and the families of each of the four victims were haunted by the last day they saw their precious children alive.

To this day, Oakland County authorities remain baffled and the killer remains at large. Over the years, police have wondered: was the killer a local pedophile, a local businessman? A drifter? A member of the clergy or a police officer?

Mark Stebbins was the official first victim of the Oakland Child Killer and was abducted on February 15, 1976.

Mark Stebbins, 12, planned on becoming a Marine. Mark was in the seventh grade at Lincoln Junior High and was described as a loveable young child by his mother Ruth Stebbins.

Mark was last seen on February 15, 1976, in Ferndale, Michigan. Mark and his mother were at the American Legion Hall where they were having a pool tournament. Bored, Mark asked his mother for money to go to the local hobby shop, but she said “no” because she had already given him his allowance. Mark didn’t seem…