Milford Memories: A Haunted Park

by Donna Pendergast

Milford Michigan is a sleepy serene village located in a bucolic area of affluent Oakland County Michigan. Despite it's trendy shops and a recent burst of development on the village outskirts it retains a small town charm with Victorian style architecture downtown and several parks sprinkled throughout the small village. The largest of these parks is Central Park which sits on the banks of the Huron River just off the downtown business district. With it's tennis courts, play scape, picnic areas and wooded trails, Central Park appears to be the picture perfect small town park.

Appearances can be deceptive.

On January 4th 1992, Cynthia Jones a 15-year-old honor student was abducted from Central Park at knife point by a masked man who left her boyfriend tied to a tree. The boyfriend later became a target of the investigation. He was the subject of intense scrutiny right up until May 27th, 1992 when serial murderer Leslie Allen Williams was apprehended by authorities and and confessed to Cindy's abduction and subsequent murder. Williams also confessed to the murders of three other teenage girls, Kami Villenueva who was abducted from her home a few months before Cindy was kidnapped and sisters Melissa and Michelle Urbin who were abducted while walking near their rural home in Fenton Michigan.

Leslie Allen Williams, an almost forgotten serial murderer, is a miscreant who had multiple violent felony convictions at the time of his apprehension. Described by psychiatrists as a woman hater and a sociopath motivated by sadism he was a time bomb waiting to explode. After confessing to the four murders he led authorities to the makeshift graves of all four girls. He later pled guilty to all four murders which spared the families and myself the rigors of a trial. His parole on multiple violent felonies prior to the teens murder was the impetus for a complete reform of the Michigan parole system. The multiple pleas of guilty ended the court saga of Leslie Allen Williams but they would not be the final chapter in Central Park's dark history.

On August 9th, 1995, two twelve year old girls, Casey Fiolek and Jennifer Wicks went missing in Milford and were widely reported as possible runaways. I remember like it was yesterday hearing the news of their disappearance on the radio. Call it what you will, a premonition or prosecutor's instinct I knew instantly that this would end badly. I knew in my heart that Casey and Jennifer had not run away. In the days following the disappearance I was astonished at how little media attention was paid to the disappearance of two 12-year old girls.

Unfortunately the situation was about to change and not in a good way.

On August 12th, 1995 a teenage boy was present at Central Park for a festival called Milford Memories. He wandered into a wooded area of the park and observed what appeared to be part of a body sticking out of a culvert pipe. What appeared to be a body was, in fact, two bodies: Casey and Jennifer, one on top of the other, sexually assaulted, choked and stabbed and stuffed into the culvert like two discarded rag dolls. The discovery was beyond horrifying. The story of how they ended up there, more horrifying yet.

An intense police investigation led the police to two local but homeless drifters, Aaron Stinchcombe and Russell Oeschger, miscreants who had been living temporarily in a wooded area of the park. Stinchcombe knew Casey's older brother from having grown up around town. He along with Oeschger had befriended the two girls in a more populated area of the park earlier in the day on the date of their murder.

The two girls spent the afternoon hours preceding their murders hanging out with the two much older men. Aaron Stinchcombe was 20 years old and Russell Oeschger was 30 years old. During the course of that afternoon the girls persuaded the men to purchase alcohol for them to celebrate their upcoming 13th birthdays. A plan was put in place where the girls would meet back up with the men at the park late at night. Little did Casey and Jennifer know that a much more diabolical plan would be hatched after they left the park in the late afternoon hours.

Jennifer was spending the night at Casey's house and the two girls snuck out of a bedroom window shortly before midnight. They headed for Central Park not knowing that what really waited for them in the park was no party but rather two monsters of the night wearing human faces. The girls met up with the men and while sitting around a picnic table began drinking the alcohol that had been purchased. Having never consumed liquor before the girls became intoxicated very quickly. After the girls became intoxicated, Russell Oeschger led Jennifer away under the pretext of showing her the bathrooms. Aaron Stinchcombe led Casey deeper into the woods to an area under a tree. What started out as a lark in the park for two young girls was about to become a scene worse than any nightmare or horror movie.

Jennifer was raped, choked and stabbed to death by Oeschger up near a bathroom located within a park. At about the same time Casey had sobered up to the point where she realized that something had gone very wrong. She began screaming "Where is Jennifer, You killed her didn't you?" to Stinchcombe who than began to beat her. At some point, Oeschger having already killed Jennifer, came over to assist Stinchcombe with Casey. Casey was raped by Stinchcombe and beaten and stomped on by both men to the point where both men thought that she was dead.

As Stinchcombe and Oeschger debated what to do with the bodies, Casey surprised both of them by jumping back up and beginning to scream. The men began twisting her head around on her neck chanting "wind up toy, wind up toy." Casey was then choked and stabbed to death and both girls bodies were then transported to the culvert and stuffed inside.

The chilling details are known only because both men made ghastly almost matching confessions that haunt me to this day nearly two decades later. I introduced those confessions in Stinchcombe and Oeschger's respective murder trials to two different but equally horrified juries. Both men were convicted of first degree murder and will spend the rest of their natural lives in prison.

Unlike the happy connotation attached to the name for the annual summer festival, my Milford memories cause me to shudder every time that I think of Cindy, Casey and Jennifer. In the case of Casey and Jennifer I always wonder how two ne'er-do-wells could escalate from petty crimes to such diabolical and monstrous acts of murder. As to all three cases, I wonder what the odds are that such a seemingly idyllic setting in such a serene and quiet community would be the scene of such horrific evil not once but on two different occasions only a few years apart. I'm sure that these questions will haunt me for the rest of my life.

As I told Casey and Jennifer's respective juries during opening statements at trial: "We tell our children there are no monsters. They don't come out at night, they don't hide in the dark, they don't torture and kill little girls. This case will prove beyond any doubt that we delude ourselves..."

But even those words did not do justice to explain the crimes and evil that befell Cindy, Casey and Jennifer in Milford's Central Park.

In the age old cycle that defines the evolution of any community people come and people go and memories fade with time. But in this case my memories of Cindy, Casey and Jennifer will remain with me for the rest of my days.

So Cindy, Jennifer and Casey, since I can't forget here is my prayer to you:

Rest assured you are still remembered
Keep those who remember in sight
Please watch over and protect our children
From the monsters who lurk in the night.

Rest in peace sweet angels, you are remembered today and always.

Statements made in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.