*BREAKING NEWS* Mr. Harvey Retains Lawyer in relation to Amy Mihaljevic Case

Brad Harvey has retained attorney Mark R. Devan to defend and protect him in any matter related to the Amy Mihaljevic case.

Mr. Harvey, as those who have read the book will know, is a pseudonym. I have chosen not to identify this suspect because he did not consent to an interview. At the time of Amy's abduction, Mr. Harvey was a self-employed tradesman and may have done some work on a house or homes on Lindford Drive, where the Mihaljevic's lived prior to Amy's abduction. His parents owned a house in the vicinity of the Bay Square Shopping plaza where Amy was last seen on October 27, 1989. I said in the book that I noticed a dark stain on the carpeting inside the apartment which was attached to the garage where Mr. Harvey's parents lived in 1989. Two weeks after the book was published, he removed material from that apartment and placed it on the tree lawn outside his house for garbage pick-up.

His retaining Mr. Devan does not imply guilt. Anyone in his shoes, who has been identified by former law enforcement officials as a suspect in a murder, may very well do the same. That said, I do find this development very interesting.

Mr. Devan is a partner at Berkman, Gordon, Murray, and Devan. He is directly familiar with high-profile murder cases. He is probably best known for successfully defending Kevin Young in the Lisa Pruett case.

Videos on YouTube

A number of news reports, interviews, and other video material related to Amy's unsolved murder can now be found on YouTube


Most interesting, I think, are the original segments that aired on Channel 43 back in 1990 (the first of which appears below). Gives you a real sense of the time and place I attempted to capture in the book.
-James Renner

Original TV report on Amy's murder.

Lamborgine FRIEND says he worked as police informant. *updated

Richard Lawson, a friend of Ted Lamborgine's--the Parma Heights man who may have been involved in a series of child murders in Michigan in the late 70's--had some strange things to say in court last week. Prosecutors say he and Lamborgine were part of a child sex ring operating out of Michigan in the late 70's. Lawson suggested that he was working undercover for police when he molested young boys. Here's the most recent article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16600631/ and a more comprehensive piece which details how Parma Heights detectives busted Lamborgine: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061212/NEWS01/612120311

Police believe the child porn ring operated out of a Michigan bike shop. The shop was owned by Bobby Moore, now deceased. At that time, four children were abducted from the Michigan area and murdered: Timothy King, age 11; Kristine Mihelich, age 10; Jill Robinson, age 12; Mark Stebbins, age 12. It's possible these children were used in videos produced by these men. The murders stopped around the time Lamborgine moved to Parma Heights in the late 70's.

I wonder if Bobby Moore or Richard Lawson may have visited Lamborgine and practiced their trade in our area. Are these names familiar to anyone?
*special thanks to Parma Heights Detectives Steve Scharschmidt and David Kunker for their help with this post.
-James Renner

A Short Friday

One thing I keep coming back to is the time of Amy's abduction: around 2:45 PM on a Friday afternoon. What sort of grown man is out of work at that time? Maybe Amy's abductor didn't have a steady job (painting, perhaps...or freelance work of some kind). But if he did, he would have to have had a job where he was done by 2:30PM or else a job where he wouldn't be missed. A job that keeps him close to kids. A mailman, perhaps. Or maybe, just maybe, a school crossing guard.

I've always liked this photo, from a Sun News article that ran in 1989. I've often wondered if the photograher framed his photo to include the mug shot.

More on this, soon, I think.
-James Renner

Another Unsolved Homicide

For the last couple weeks, I've been investigating the strange death of Joseph Kupchik. He was a bright-eyed 19 year-old kid from Strongsville whose body was found on the ground beside Fat Fish Blue about a year ago. The cops said it was suicide--that Joe stabbed himself and then jumped off a 9-story parking garage. I've discovered some new details that points toward murder, instead.

So, if you have some time, pick up a copy of this week's Free Times, and give The Murder of Joseph Kupchik a read. You can also read it online here: http://www.freetimes.com/story/4613

*The title on the webpage is messed up but should be fixed soon.
-James Renner

Signings and Speaking Engagements

January 4: Presentation for the Bay Village Men's Club 7:30PM

January 6: Blue Heron Bookstore in Peninsula (1593 Main St.) 1-2:30PM

*If you would like me to give a presentation and/or reading to your group of sleuths, please contact Chris Andrikanich at Gray & Company Publishers (216-431-2665) www.grayco.com

Some Ground Rules for this Blog

I'm happy to see that this blog is getting some attention. My hope is we can all use this blog to provide new information and clues which can help solve Amy's case.

I will continue to allow anonymous postings because some people may want to leave sensitive information without revealing their identity. However, if you're not registered, your post will first be sent to me to approve. I imagine that 99% of the time I will simply allow the post to go through. The reason for adding this extra step is that someone attempted to post what they thought was Brad Harvey's real name this morning. Mr. Harvey is not identified on this blog, because he remains uncharged. Same deal with the uncharged suspect "Sam Tillerman".

Feel free to expound on your theories about the identity of Brad Harvey on other sites. But I have never identified this man and I don't intend to on this blog (at least for now).

Also, I welcome negative criticism as well as positive. That's the nature of my job. And I have a thick skin. However, I would ask that if you want to call me a liar, to please provide a smidge of reasoning and logic to your attack. If I'm wrong about something, I'd like to know the real answer so that we can post it here and further the investigation. For instance, I know there are a handful of spelling mistakes (even though it was proofed by a bazillion people, this happens). If you're going to point this out, please provide the page number so it can be corrected in a later edition. If you want to question a fact (bring it on, punk) it would be nice if you provided evidence to support your side.

In the next few weeks, I will be identifying at least one new suspect, and providing some new clues and information which people have recently sent to my email address. I am also attempting to provide direct evidence that Alvin Matlock is alive and well in Arizona. Since there are a number of frequent visitors to this site who live in Bay Village, I will also be posting questions for you, periodically. Check back soon. But please play nice.
-James Renner

Brad Harvey Update

There are a couple dozen suspects in this case, most of whom are mentioned in the book either in passing or in detail. There are names I included in the book but did not specifically identify as suspects, in hopes that the simple inclusion of their name might generate new leads (in some cases that has already happened). Other times, I used a fake name for the suspect (noting in footnotes that I had done so, of course). One of those suspects was particularly interesting to me. I called him Brad Harvey.

Harvey's parents lived near the Bay Square shopping plaza where Amy was abducted, in 1989. There was a small apartment attached to their garage. One day I stopped by the house, and looked into the windows of that apartment behind the garage, which had fallen into disrepair. I noticed a dark stain in the carpeting there. I included these details in the book.

Two weeks after it was published, Mr. Harvey removed the carpeting from the apartment and put it on the tree lawn for the garbage men to take away. Several Bay Village residents contacted me about this. I asked the Bay Village police to get a sample. I'm assuming they did.
The question on everyone's mind is 'Do the fibers from Harvey's carpet match the gold/yellow fibers found on Amy's body?' Unfortunately, I have no answer for you. Hopefully it was tested. Only the police know for sure. The timing of Mr. Harvey's remodeling certainly seems very odd to me. I'll let you know if I hear anything more. Perhaps Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigation is testing it at this very moment.

-James Renner