Police look for victims of suspected Michigan serial killer

A Michigan man serving life in prison for killing a 13-year-old girl is a suspected serial killer, police said Wednesday as they dug up part of a forest in a search for as many as seven other girls who have been missing for decades.

In this March 6, 2017 photo released by the Michigan Department of Corrections, Arthur Ream is shown. Police are digging in woods northeast of Detroit near where the body of a 13-year-old girl who went missing in 1986 was found more than a decade ago. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP)

Using earth-moving equipment, as well as shovels and rakes, authorities have spent two days excavating a wooded site about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of Detroit in the belief that Arthur Ream buried all of his victims in the same general area.

The police commissioner in nearby Warren appealed to the inmate to help investigators find the remains.

"You want to be a man about it?" Bill Dwyer said. "Let's help the families out. Give them some closure. That's what it's all about."

Ream is no stranger to the area. Following his 2008 conviction for killing Cindy Zarzycki, he led investigators to her remains, which had been buried there for more than 20 years.

Investigators huddle before they travel across a huge field to a dig site along a rural wooded area in Macomb Township, Mich., Wednesday, May 9, 2018. (Todd McInturf/Detroit News via AP)

The current search area spans about 24 acres. Searchers are trying to narrow that down to a more manageable size, police said.

Police interviewed Ream a few months ago after fellow prisoners said he boasted about killing four to six other people. He later failed a lie-detector test, Dwyer said.

Ream, who turned 69 on Wednesday, was sentenced in 1998 to 15 years in prison for criminal sexual conduct and taking indecent liberties with a child less than two years earlier.

Attorney R. Timothy Kohler, who was appointed by a judge to represent him in his 2008 murder trial, said his former client is "not a likable guy" and not healthy.

"He smoked excessively and was overweight. I didn't want to particularly hear his story, other than my sense that he was denying any allegation of intentionally murdering" Cindy.

An excavator moves to a rural wooded area in Macomb Township, Mich., Tuesday, May 8, 2018.  (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

"He claimed his innocence. He never told me that he did anything. Frankly, I don't think I was interested in knowing that," Kohler said.

Cindy was last seen on April 20, 1986, after going to a Dairy Queen in Eastpointe, a mostly blue-collar suburb north of Detroit.

Other possible victims include 12-year-old Kimberly King, who disappeared in 1979 while visiting her grandmother in Warren; Kim Larrow, who was 15 when she was last seen in 1981 in Canton Township, west of Detroit; and Kellie Brownlee, who was 17 when she vanished in 1982 from suburban Novi.

Authorities are also searching for additional victims who have not been publicly identified.

During Ream's murder trial, prosecutors said he told Cindy that he was taking her to a surprise birthday party for his son, who was her boyfriend at the time. Scott Ream's birthday actually was months earlier.

Investigators set up their equipment under tents before beginning their work at a dig site along a rural wooded area in Macomb Township, Mich., Wednesday, May 9, 2018. (Todd McInturf/Detroit News via AP)

Even after leading police to her remains, Ream denied killing her. He told a police detective in 2008 that Cindy was with his son the day she died and claimed she fell from an open elevator at his carpet warehouse in Warren.

Her father hopes Ream tells police where other bodies might be found.

"I pray for him every day that his heart softens," Edward Zarzycki said Wednesday at the excavation site.

King's sister, Konnie Beyma, wants the same.

"Please just tell us where she is so we can move on," Beyma told reporters. "That's all. Let us take her and bury her next to my grandmother."

SEATTLE (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it has opened an investigation into Boeing after the beleaguered company reported that workers at a South Carolina plant falsified inspection records on certain 787 planes. Boeing said its engineers have determined that misconduct did not create “an immediate safety of flight issue.”

In an email to Boeing's South Carolina employees on April 29, Scott Stocker, who leads the 787 program, said a worker observed an “irregularity” in a required test of the wing-to-body join and reported it to his manager.

“After receiving the report, we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating Company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed,” Stocker wrote.

Boeing notified the FAA and is taking “swift and serious corrective action with multiple teammates,” Stocker said.

No planes have been taken out of service, but having to perform the test out of order on planes will slow the delivery of jets still being built at the final assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Boeing must also create a plan to address planes that are already flying, the FAA said.

The 787 is a two-aisle plane that debuted in 2011 and is used mostly for long international flights.

“The company voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes,” the agency said in a written statement. “The FAA is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records.”

The company has been under intense pressure since a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, leaving a gaping hole in the plane. The accident halted progress that Boeing seemed to be making while recovering from two deadly crashes of Max jets in 2018 and 2019.

Those crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which killed 346 people, are back in the spotlight, too. The families of some of the victims have pushed the Justice Department to revive a criminal fraud charge against the company by determining that Boeing's continued lapses violated the terms of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement.

In April, a Boeing whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, testified at a congressional hearing that the company had taken manufacturing shortcuts to turn out 787s as quickly as possible; his allegations were not directly related to those the company disclosed to the FAA last month. The company rejected Salehpour’s claims.

In his email, Stocker praised the worker who came forward to report what he saw: “I wanted to personally thank and commend that teammate for doing the right thing. It’s critical that every one of us speak up when we see something that may not look right, or that needs attention.”

FILE - A Boeing ecoDemonstrator Explorer, a 787-10 Dreamliner, sits on the tarmac at their campus in North Charleston, S.C., May 30, 2023. The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday, May 6, 2024, that it has opened an investigation into Boeing after the beleaguered company reported that workers at a South Carolina plant falsified inspection records on certain 787 planes. Boeing said its engineers have determined that misconduct did not create “an immediate safety of flight issue.” (Gavin McIntyre/The Post And Courier via AP, Pool, File)