I stumbled upon this case at work on MondayI'm an editor for a publishing house that publishes true crime books, among other thingand realized that I was, I'm fairly certain, almost one of the victims of OCCK.
When I was 5 or 6, I was with my dad at Oakland University one day while he was meeting with a professor at an office in Vandenburg Hall. (This was either fall of 1976 or spring of 77, probably the former, still trying to nail it down.) I was waiting in a little lounge down the hallI was probably being too disruptivewhen this strange guy walked in, shaggy black or dark hair, sideburns, bulky army-type or maybe dungaree jacket. He comes over and sits very close to me on the couchwe were the only people in the room. I was immediately uncomfortable and got up and left the room, and went and sat just outside the open door of the office. After a minute or two, the guy appeared at the end of the hallway, maybe 50 feet from me, feet slightly apart, hands in his jacket pockets, and gestures with his head, nodding toward his shoulder, for me to come with him. Scared the hell out of me. I shook my head "no." He never spoke, nor did I. My dad either saw me shaking my head at someone or sensed something was off and stuck his head out the door, and the guy split pretty quick. (I talked to my dad about this todayfor many years I thought I was the only one who saw the guy, but he remembers seeing him too.) As we left the building, I remember looking around for him in the hallways, and stepping outside, turning back to see if he was hiding behind a tree or something, but I didn't see him again.
My memory of this is incident is pretty vivid, even after 40 yearshe just exuded this dark, malignant vibe. Some weeks or maybe months later, I was at the Perry Drug store near our house in Pontiac and saw a police composite sketch on the cover of the paper and knew I was looking at his face.
I've told this story to family and friends perhaps a dozen-odd times over the years, with no other context than that of a scary childhood memory. Fast forward four decades, and I'm reading about the case at my desk a few days agohad never hear the phrase OCCK, I just remember all the "stranger danger" talks at school and at home around this time. Clicking on a few links, I full-screen this mugshot of Greg Green(e), one of the prime suspects, and it turned by blood to ice water. I'm as certain as I can be that this is the guyshaggy hair, sideburns, and those eyes. I also remember that his head tilted slightly to one side, and all three mugshots I have seen his head is slightly inclined in the same way. Another mugshot showed him in a bulky jacket like the one I remember, affirming that detail.
It's all rattled me a bitlearning what happened to these other kids, that their last days were unimaginable terrifying and painful and to take in the fact that I maybe was almost one of them. Anyway, I don't think these details will break the case or anything, but they might as well be part of the record, maybe might corroborate some other fact or timeline (waiting on OCSD to call me back).
