Oakland County Child Killer Victims

Case background and investigation

Between February 1976 and March 1977, four children were abducted and murdered in Oakland County, Michigan, in a series of killings attributed to an unidentified offender the press dubbed the Oakland County Child Killer (OCCK). The confirmed victims were Mark Stebbins, 12, of Ferndale; Jill Robinson, 12, of Royal Oak; Kristine Mihelich, 10, of Berkley; and Timothy King, 11, of Birmingham. In each case the child vanished from an ordinary errand and was held for several days before being killed; several of the bodies were found deliberately placed in plain view along roadsides in the snow, a detail that fed intense public fear across metropolitan Detroit.

The killings prompted one of the largest homicide investigations in U.S. history to that point. A multi-agency task force led by the Michigan State Police and drawing on officers from Oakland County communities was assembled, and investigators fielded tens of thousands of tips. The task force disbanded in December 1978, with responsibility for the still-open case reverting to the Michigan State Police, which continues to hold the investigation. No one has ever been charged or convicted, and the case remains officially unsolved.

Over the decades investigators have publicly identified several persons of interest, none of whom has been charged in the killings. Christopher Busch, a convicted child molester and the son of a General Motors executive, was investigated as a possible suspect; he died in 1978 in what was ruled a suicide, and authorities have said DNA testing in 2012 did not link him to the murders. Arch Sloan, a convicted sex offender serving life sentences on unrelated charges, drew scrutiny after hair evidence recovered from his car was reported to match hairs found on two of the victims, though the hair was not Sloan's own. Ted Lamborgine, described by some investigators in 2007 as a leading suspect, pleaded guilty to unrelated sex offenses and declined a polygraph on the OCCK case. James Gunnels was identified as a person of interest after a hair on Kristine Mihelich's body was reported as a mitochondrial DNA match to him or a maternal relative. Authorities have repeatedly cautioned that these developments have not established the identity of the killer.

The investigation has been shadowed by a long controversy over how physical evidence and case files were handled. Timothy King's father, Barry King, pursued litigation and public-records efforts that led to the release of thousands of pages of documents, alleging investigative mistakes, inter-agency conflict, and potential obstruction; he died in 2020 without seeing the case resolved. A DNA profile developed from crime-scene material reportedly does not match any named suspect, and officials including Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard have acknowledged that portions of the surviving evidence have degraded or were consumed in earlier testing.

As of 2026, roughly 50 years after the murders, the case remains open and unsolved. The Michigan State Police and Oakland County Prosecutor's Office describe the investigation as active, while surviving family members have publicly pressed for retesting of evidence, digitization of case files, and a dedicated cold-case effort. Investigators have expressed hope that advances in DNA and forensic genealogy, or a new witness account, could eventually identify the person or people responsible.