HUNTER: Answers lost after prison death of suspected serial killer?

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Published Sep 16, 2024  •  2 minute read

Serial killer? Cops believe the "not likeable" Arthur Ream could be responsible for a slew of murders dating to the 1970s. Photo by HANDOUT /MICH. DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS

Suspected serial killer Arthur Ream pegged out from cancer in August at a Michigan prison.

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At the time, the 73-year-old sicko’s passing went unnoted until late last week when the Detroit News broke the story. But the creep’s death leaves a slew of unanswered questions.

During the 1970s and 80s, suburban Detroit was plagued by the murders and disappearances of numerous children. Many were pegged as the handiwork of the Oakland County Child Killer.

Ream would end up going down on one homicide, a slew of child sex assaults, and as a suspect in a quartet of other murders in the outer reaches of Motown.

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Ream boasted to other jailbirds that his death count was actually between four and six.

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“He likes to talk and he loves to be the centre of attention — he wants people to pay attention to him,” former assistant district attorney Steven Kaplan told the News in 2018. “He never said there were others, but because of what we learned about him, we always thought there were other victims.”

Victims of the Oakland County Child Killer in suburban Detroit. HANDOUT/ DPD

Ream was eyed in the following disappearances and suspected murders:

— Cynthia Coon, 13, who disappeared from Ann Arbor in 1970

— Nadine O’Dell, 16, who disappeared in Inkster in 1974

— Kim Larrow, 15, who disappeared in Canton in 1981

—Kellie Brownlee, 17, who disappeared in Novi in 1982

In 2008, after a lifetime of sexual molestation convictions, cops finally caught up with Reams. He was convicted of murdering his son’s 13-year-old girlfriend, Cindy Zarzycki, whom he lured to a local Dairy Queen.

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At the time of his arrest, he was in prison for the rape of another 15-year-old girl. In the jailhouse, he boasted about how many teen girls he had raped and murdered.

More recently, in May 2018, cops began digging up 24 acres in a suburban Macomb County forest where they believed Ream had buried up to seven missing girls. Among those they were looking for was 12-year-old Kimberly King, who vanished in 1979.

“I’ve always thought that Mr. Ream was responsible for additional kidnappings and murders and felt that area could be a place where other bodies were buried,” said John Calabrese, former deputy police chief for the Eastpointe Police Department.

But the 2018 search proved fruitless. Yet, even with Ream’s demise, investigators say they are still looking at five different cold cases and all of them have roads leading to Ream.

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For the families who have suffered decades of limbo and fear, will their cries for justice continue to be answered following Ream’s death?

“I think it’s a very strong possibility or probability, but I don’t know 100%,” King’s sister Konnie Beyma told WXYZ of Ream’s involvement.

Homicide detectives have long said everything points to Ream in the other murders, but they don’t have enough evidence.

The killer was “not likeable,” his lawyer claimed, and he was a master manipulator.

When he was arrested in 2008 for the cold case murder of Cindy Zarzycki, Ream denied killing her.

But in a moment of self-reflection told detectives: “I’m into, was into, teenage girls. OK?”

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