The Oakland County Child Killer: 50 Years Without an Answer

Four children. A police sketch. A blue car. Fifty years without an answer. Between 1976 and 1977, Mark Stebbins, Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich, and Timothy King disappeared from communities around Oakland County, Michigan. Each was later found murdered. Investigators believed the children had been held captive for days while their families searched for them. This episode follows the search for Timothy King, the disputed blue AMC Gremlin sighting, the investigation into Christopher Busch, and the unidentified hairs recovered from Arch Sloan’s car. What did those clues actually establish—and why have they still not led to a proven killer? Fifty years after the first murder, the four cases remain unsolved. Subscribe to CrimesInBrief for real crimes, unresolved mysteries, and the investigations behind them. CHAPTERS00:00 A trip to the store01:09 The first three children03:19 The search for Tim04:43 The blue car05:40 Christopher Busch07:41 The hair in the car09:38 Fifty years CREDITSVictim portraits: family photographs reproduced by Solve the Case and Don’t Talk to Strangers; Kristine Mihelich’s historical portrait from the San Antonio Express, via Wikimedia Commons.Historical police composite sketches: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.Christopher Busch and Gregory Greene photographs: I Did It for Jodie archive.Arch Sloan, Erica Ascroft, and Heather Catallo photographs: Michigan Department of Corrections and WXYZ / Heather Catallo, as credited in the original reporting.AMC Gremlin photograph: Christopher Ziemnowicz (CZmarlin), “1974 AMC Gremlin X and Levi’s package in Diamond blue at 2021 AMO 1of6.jpg,” CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Reframed and animated. This is a representative car, not the case vehicle.Road geometry: U.S. Census Bureau, TIGER/Line 2025. Locations are approximate.Stock footage via Pexels: cottonbro studio, Joerg Schlagheck, Roberto Zepeda, Aki HP, Ambient_Nature_ Atmosphere, Tom Fisk, Kaboompics, and Mikhail Nilov.Research includes WXYZ investigations, contemporary task-force records, and archived search-warrant material. Original graphics, animation, and editing: CrimesInBrief. Family, custody, and news photographs are used for identification and documentary commentary; no blanket copyright-free status is claimed. Contemporary footage and vehicle illustrations are not recordings or photographs of the crimes. No individual is presented as the proven killer. #OaklandCountyChildKiller #TrueCrime #UnsolvedMysteries