Michigan Murders

The Michigan Murders were a series of highly publicized killings of young women committed between 1967 and 1969 in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area of Michigan by an individual known as the Ypsilanti Ripper, the Michigan Murderer, and the Co-Ed Killer.

All the victims of the Michigan Murderer were young women between the ages of 13 and 21 who were abducted, raped, and extensively bludgeoned prior to their murder before their bodies were discarded within a 15-mile radius of Washtenaw County. The victims were typically murdered by stabbing or strangulation and their bodies were occasionally mutilated after death. Each victim had been menstruating at the time of her death, and investigators strongly believe this fact had invoked an extreme rage into the evident sexual motive of her murderer. The prime suspect, John Norman Chapman (then known as John Norman Collins) was arrested one week after the final murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for this final murder attributed to the Michigan Murderer on August 19, 1970, and is currently incarcerated at G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility.

Although never tried for the remaining five murders attributed to the Michigan Murderer, or the murder of a sixth girl killed in California whose death has been linked to the series, investigators believe Collins to be responsible for all seven murders linked to the same perpetrator.