November 29,2005 The Hon. John Ellis Bush Executive Office of the Governor The Capitol Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001 The Hon. Rick Perry Office of the Governor PO Box 122428 Austin, TX 78711-2428 Dear Sirs, I have been a producer for Dateline NBC for nearly 12 years. I am writing to present you with what I honestly believe to be an opportunity to close the books on three murders that have gone unsolved in your states for 20 years, to give the families of these young women closure after decades of grieving, and to hold responsible a serial killer who is currently incarcerated for life without parole in Arkansas. And what will it take to make it happen? I am asking you and your elected prosecutors to guarantee not to pursue the death penalty against the man whom I am convinced is responsible. His name is Michael Ronning. (Arkansas Dept. of Correction #86738) Since 1986, Mr. Ronning has been serving a sentence of life without parole for murder in Arkansas. But Mr. Ronning is also a suspected serial killer, and a man whose movements, habits, and deadly ways I have spent years studying and documenting. Mr. Ronning was the subject of a Dateline NBC broadcast in 2002. Although Mr. Ronning is currently serving prison time for the murder of one young woman, he has admitted to me that he has committed a total of seven murders. And in five years, I have never found a reason to doubt his word although I have repeatedly sought to poke holes in every one of his claims. Here are the pertinent details for your purposes.
In 1982, Mr. Ronning was sharing a home in Arlington, Texas with his girlfriend, and several others, including 20 year old Annette Melia, when Ms. Melia went missing on September 22 nd. Within 24 hours of Ms. Melia s disappearance, Mr. Ronning and his girlfriend fled the area. Ms. Melia s body was not discovered until 1985, when squirrel hunters found it buried in the woods near Bedford, Texas. Mr. Ronning s second victim in Texas disappeared in Grand Prairie on August 12, 1983. And Mr. Ronning has been placed inside the apartment building at the very time that 16- year old Melissa Jackson went missing. Ms. Jackson s body was not found until 1986, when her remains were found in the woods outside Bedford, approximately 800 yards from the spot where Annette Melia s body was discovered. Jackson s remains were not identified until 1992. Finally, in April 1984, Mr. Ronning and his girlfriend were living and working in Umatilla, Florida. My research shows that Mr. Ronning received a traffic ticket on April 7 th, then skipped the state for California just days before the body of a young redheaded woman was found just a couple miles from the trailer home where he d been living. She has never been identified. I tied Mr. Ronning to the murder of the young woman in Florida by focusing on his modus operandi: all of Mr. Ronning s victims were females aged 16-20 with blonde or light reddish hair. He has said he always strangled his victims. And he always buried their nude or semi-nude bodies within a few miles of his home, most often in shallow graves, covered with branches or sticks. (He said he liked to be near the bodies, a common trait of serial killers) And Mr. Ronning also fled the area soon after committing a murder. Mr. Ronning has admitted that he committed two murders in Texas. He has not yet admitted the Florida murder. Two outstanding detectives in Bedford, Texas and Lake County, Florida can confirm everything I have written so far. Please contact them. Lt. Biff Schuessler Bedford Police Department 2121 L. Don Dodson Bedford, TX 76021 917-952-2414
Det. Sgt. Ken Adams Lake County Sheriff s Office 360 W. Ruby Tavares, FL 32778 352-343-9553, ext 100 Both these fine detectives have made repeated attempts to meet and to question Mr. Ronning about the murder or murders in their jurisdiction, but Mr. Ronning has declined their every attempt. Why? Very simply, Mr. Ronning is worried that he will be extradited to Florida or Texas, charged with capital murder, and eventually executed. Given the set of circumstances I have so far outlined, it would seem that this issue could be fairly easily settled. But sadly, this is just half of Mr. Ronning s story. And the second half makes settling and solving the murders much more complicated. In fact, Mr. Ronning also claims to be responsible for three more murders in Michigan. There is significant evidence that he is telling the truth about these murders as well. And a former detective and former Captain in the Battle Creek, Michigan Police Department are adamant in their belief that Mr. Ronning committed these three murders. (Contact names and numbers follow at the end of this letter) Credit for linking Ronning to these many murders should go to retired Battle Creek Police Department Homicide Detective Dennis Mullen. It was Mullen who in 1987 saw a pattern in the murders of several women in the Battle Creek area. It is a pattern that fits those Texas and Florida murders previously discussed. And the pattern led him to Michael Ronning. The murders in Michigan are, as follows: In August 1982, 20-year old Maggie Hume was strangled in her apartment in Battle Creek, Michigan. At the time of the murder, Mr. Ronning was staying in the apartment below Ms. Hume s. The day after the murder, Mr. Ronning and his girlfriend fled Michigan for Texas, where it turns out that within a month, Annette Melia disappeared. In February 1983, 16-year old Patty Rosansky disappeared while walking to school in Battle Creek. She went missing on the block where Mr. Ronning s father owned a bookstore. Her body was found two months later, semi-nude, buried in a ravine, covered with leaves and an old refrigerator door, about 2 miles from Ronning s apartment.
And finally in March 1983, a teenager named Kerry Evans disappeared while walking in Bellevue, Michigan, near Battle Creek. Two months later Evans s body was found in a wooded area about 1.5 miles from Mr. Ronning s current home. (and just a couple miles from where Patty Rosansky s body was found) After retired Detective Mullen linked Mr. Ronning to the murders, it took ten years of negotiation to get Ronning back to Michigan from Arkansas. In Michigan, Mr. Ronning passed a polygraph and gave statements in which he admitted committing the murders of Ms. Hume, Ms. Rosansky, and Ms. Evans. It was part of a deal signed by then-governor John Engler of Michigan, who promised to allow Mr. Ronning to serve his life sentence in Michigan if his claims checked out. After his statements, Mr. Ronning spent more than two years in custody in Michigan waiting for a resolution. But after two years, prosecutors in Battle Creek did not charge Mr. Ronning with any of the three murders; instead, they labeled him a liar and sent him back to serve out the rest of his life sentence in Arkansas. Although Detective Mullen said that Mr. Ronning knew details of the crimes that only the killer would have known, prosecutors pointed out various inconsistencies in Mr. Ronning s stories as the main reason for spiking the deal. However, I believe, as do many credible law enforcement veterans, that the real reason prosecutors charged that Mr. Ronning was lying about the three murders in Michigan is because a man named Thomas Cress has been imprisoned for one of the murders since 1985. Mr. Cress was convicted not on the basis of scientific evidence, but of nowdiscredited eyewitness evidence. Mr. Cress remains in prison today, still proclaiming his innocence. The Michigan matters are not unimportant, but I would ask that you set them aside for the purposes of this request. The bottom line is this: there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence that Mr. Ronning committed the three murders in Texas and Florida. Law enforcement professionals would still like to speak with him. For five years I have written letters to Mr. Ronning, asking him to do the right thing: to see the detectives, and to tell them the truth about the murders in Florida and Texas. He has made it clear to me that he will not even consider such meetings without signed guarantees from the Governors of Texas and Florida. These guarantees are solely to take the issue of the death penalty off the table.
What s the risk? There is none. Ronning is already locked up for life in Arkansas with no chance of parole. He will die in prison. But you have the opportunity to make sure that the truth is known about how three young women died more than twenty years ago. I am convinced beyond any doubt that these cold cases can be closed. Why should you do it? Because it s the right thing to do. Because the mothers of Annette Melia and Melissa Jackson, for whom the loss of their daughters is still on their minds daily, deserve finally to gain a measure of peace. Why am I writing to beg you to take up this effort? Because it s the right thing to do. But I am certain Dateline NBC would give substantial coverage to the solving of three cold case murders tied to a serial killer, and the essential roles played by the Governors of Texas and Florida. Neither Mr. Ronning, nor any of the family members or detectives know that I am writing this letter. But I would urge you to have your staff members consult with Detective Schuessler in Bedford, TX and Detective Sgt. Adams in Tavares, FL. I would urge you to contact retired Battle Creek Police Department members Dennis Mullen and Joe Newman. And please contact me with any questions. I thank you for your time and your consideration. And I pray that you will see fit to take the action that is necessary to solve these cases. It can be done, but only with your help. Thank you. Shane Bishop Producer Dateline NBC 3000 W. Alameda, Suite 2907 Burbank, CA 91523 541-899-0200 office 917-841-8893 cell shane.bishop@nbc.com
CC: Mr. Brad King State Attorney, 5 th Judicial Circuit 19 NW Pine Avenue Ocala, FL 34475 Mr. Tim Curry Criminal District Attorney Tarrant County 401 W. Belknap Forth Worth, TX 76196 Joe Newman Retired Police Captain Battle Creek Police Department 252 Minges Hills Drive Battle Creek, MI 49015 269-979-9630 Home 269-968-1290 Office 269-209-6104 Cell Dennis Mullen Retired Homicide Detective Battle Creek Police Department 616-963-7598