Happy New Year 2026!
(Even though this topic cannot be described as “Happy”!)
The year 2026 will mark the 250-year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Fifty years ago, in 1976, marked 200 years.
What was also interesting, in 1976, and at the beginning of the year, had to do with timing.
Strange timing.
Disturbing timing.
In Metro Detroit, Michigan, three teenaged girls—two aged 16; one aged 14—were murdered.
The dates of their murders were within the first twenty days of the new year.
January 1976.
This did make news—I suggest referring to archives (such as at Newspapers.com)—and this was very upsetting to residents especially in greater Metro Detroit areas and, come to think, the nation’s then-No. 7 most-populous state.
The victims:
• Judy Ferro (b. 1959; died January 1, 1976). A 16-year-old teenager from Farmington Hills, in Oakland County, Ferro was babysitting for a couple—their last name is Lauts—in Redford Township, in Wayne County. (This is the county in which Detroit, and myself, is located. My fraternal aunt, and her family, lived in this area.) On December 31, 1975, Ferro was babysitting for two young girls while their parents went out to ring in the new year. Ferro talked with her mother just after Midnight, with the new year having arrived, and at around 03:00 a.m. ET the parents returned to find Ferro missing; bullet holes in their ceiling; the phone off the hook; and their daughters not harmed. Around 07:00 a.m. ET, during a police search for Ferro, the 16-year-old babysitter was found dead in the Lola Valley Park area just a few blocks from the Lauts’s residence. Gary Pervinkler, a 19-year-old who was living across from the Lauts’s house, spied on Ferro; kidnapped her at gunpoint; beat and strangled her to death; went on the run; and was found dead—by a gunshot-to-the-head suicide—on April 7, 1976.
• Cynthia Cadieux (March 1, 1959–January 16, 1976). A 16-year-old from Roseville, in Macomb County (part of the Tri-County of Metro, Detroit), Cadieux was walking outside at night on Thursday, January 15, 1976. After visting a friend, and with intention to return home, Cadieux was approached by friends, in their vehicle, who asked if the teen would like a ride. She said no. That decision was followed by a cruel fate. Cadieux was found dead, approximately during the hour of 01:00 a.m. ET, on Friday, January 16, 1976. A vehicular driver came across Cadieux’s nude body along Franklin Road, close to the location of Franklin Cider Mill (a popular Apple Cider mill during Fall), in Bloomfield Hills in Oakland County. She was raped and bludgeoned to death. Her abductors, and killers, were not discovered for two years. In prison, and in 1978, Robert Anglin confessed his crime to an inmate. That inmate turned in Anglin. Accomplice to the crime was Raymond Heinrich. They were convicted in 1979.
• Sheila Srock (June 13, 1961–January 19, 1976). A 14-year-old from Birmingham, in Oakland County, Srock was daughter to two deceased parents, born more than forty years prior to Srock, and the teen was being raised by her adult brother, James (1942–2000). Sheila was babysitting for the infant daughter of her sister Nancy (born circa 1946) in a Birmingham home located just east of M–1 (also known as Woodward Avenue). On Monday, January 19, 1976, a burglar navigated the neighborhood, from one house to the next, and encountered one other victim (who was tied up). The burglar broke into Nancy’s house and encountered Sheila. The 14-year-old was raped and shot multiple times. A neighbor, on the roof of his house, witnessed the burglar in the house. Afterward, several neighbors—having heard the gunshots—were outside and wanting to know what was happening. So was Police. Sheila’s killer slipped outside the house, blended into the crowd, and escaped. Police thought the burglar was in his 20s. Turns out the murderer who confessed, in 1980, was Oliver Rhodes Andrews. He was not in his 20s. He was born the same year as my mother, in 1935, and was age 40 when he committed the crimes which included the murder of Srock. Andrews, a native of North Carolina who committed crimes in multiple states, and who was already serving a 101-year sentence in a Virginia prison for unrelated crimes, confessed in 1978 and was sentenced in 1979 to Life in Prison.
Numerous Sources:
• Find a Grave — Cynthia Cadieux
A good source is podcaster Nina Innsted.
Innsted, who was born in Michigan in 1968, has a true-crime podcast titled Already Gone, which she started in 2017 (same year as Progressives Chat), and has looked into a number of crimes of murder. Ones which occurred in her birth state are especially of interest. This particular topic is covered, in the first episode (“The Babysitter Murders”), in her 2018-to-2019 series titled Don’t Talk to Strangers.
Much of Innsted’s childhood was living in the city Berkley, located in Oakland County, in Michigan. This is along the M–1/Woodward Avenue corridor which runs northwest to the city Pontiac, in Oakland County, and to the southeast, in Wayne County, in downtown Detroit. (In this area was the residence of my maternal grandparents.)
Innsted—who has a soft and sincere voice—has also done podcasts on the infamous “Oakland County Child Killer” serial murder case. That horrible period—the most notorious “Unsolved” serial murders in the history of the state—played out from February 1976 to March 1977. Next month will mark 50 years since the first victim was claimed. I will recognize this, here at Progressives Chat, with a topic to be published on Sunday, February 15, 2026.
Regarding Progressives Chat in 2026:
The next Progressives Chat, which will be about a political matter, will be scheduled to publish on the date Thursday, January 15, 2026.
It is my intention to schedule topics—which will include the year’s United States midterm elections—on the 1st and 15th of each month.
For any change along the way, such as with skipping a date (for, perhaps, a break), I will be considerate to make sure to keep such communication up to date.
