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Victim Recalls Night Of Terror

Victim Recalls Night Of Terror image
Parent Issue
Day
22
Month
October
Year
1975
Copyright
Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

Victim Recalls Night Of Terror

BY WILLIAM TREML

News Courts Reporter -

In a calm, unemotional voice an auto executive this morning quietly told of a night of terror in which his family was kidnapped and he was left to bargain with a shotgun-wielding bandit.

William E. Schulenberg was called to the witness stand by Prosecuting Attorney William F. Delhey in the 15th District Court examination of three suspects in the crime. Daniel G. Wirth, 21, John (Todd) Szynwelski, 20, and Kenneth J. Royce, 18, are charged with kidnapping and extortion. They were brought from their County Jail cells this morning to the City Hall courtroom of Judge George Alexander for the examination.

Schulenberg, works manager of the General Motors Hydra-matic Division at Willow Run, was on the witness stand this morning for more than an hour. Under direct examination Delhey, Schulenberg recounted the events of the night of Sept. 29 when two armed men burst into his house on the city's far northeast side and made hostages of his family.

The GM executive said he was seated at a table in his home at 3930 Waldenwood Drive when he heard a loud noise at the rear of his house near a garage door. A man holding a double-barrel shotgun burst through a door, ran into the room, crouched down and aimed the gun at him, Schulenberg said.

“He called me by name and told me to place my hands on my head and be quiet," the witness told Delhey.

Moments later a second man, this one masked, ran into the room, knelt and pointed a rifle at him, Schulenberg said. The man with the shotgun ordered Schulenberg to lie on a floor of a hallway, straddled him and placed the shotgun at his head, he said. The intruder with the rifle ran to a second floor and .moments later marched the three Schulenberg boys, Billy, Jeff and Robert, down the stairs, the senior Schulenberg said. He said his sons were “in a line and had one hand on the shoulder of the one in front. . . ”

Eleven-year-old Billy was forced to tape the hands and legs of his brothers, the witness said. The gunman wearing the mask appeared at that time with Schulenberg's wife. Ruth, whom he had ordered from the basement. Young Billy was then carried by one of the men out of the room and Mrs. Schulenberg and the other two boys were herded at gunpoint out of the house, the witness said.

Schulenberg, who earlier had also been bound with tape, then was ordered into a downstairs bedroom by the man with the shotgun who taped his wrists to a bed post, the GM executive said.

The witness then described an hour-long conversation with the gunman over ransom demands.

"First he said they wanted a million dollars,” Schulenberg said. "Then it was a half-million, then as much as I could raise."

Schulenberg said when he told the gunman he had little ready cash but would be getting a check for between $4,000 and $5,000 in a few days the bandit replied, "I can’t stay that long.”

The GM official then recounted a night of phone calls, many received or made by the shotgun bandit. He said he answered the phone each time and on one call a muffled voice said, "Let me talk to my buddy.”

Through the night Schulenberg made numerous calls to his superior at General Motors and later to his broker as he attempted to raise the ransom money. When he demanded to be put in touch with a member of his abducted family, an indirect contact was made through a question which Schulenberg asked and his son Robert answered through one of the abductors.

After arrangements had been made to raise the ransom Schulenberg and the shotgun bandit left the family home at 7:20 a.m. and drove to the Plymouth Mall off Plymouth Road. There he was told to transfer to his Cadillac which was parked in the mall lot. The shotgun bandit drove another Schulenberg Cadillac back to the family home and told Schulenberg to follow in the second car.

Schulenberg said when he got into the parked car he saw bullet holes in the trunk. He said he shouted. "This is Dad. Who's in there?" He said one of his sons answered. 

He said he drove back to his Waldenwood Drive residence and there opened the trunk to find his wife and two of his sons, Billy and Jeff.

He said he called his GM superior who appeared a short time later with an attache case filled with cash. He said when he gave the case to the man with the shotgun the bandit said, “Sure is a lot of money.”

He said the man put some of the money in a paper bag with a shotgun stock and left in a car.

“Do you see in this courtroom that man who had the shotgun and spent the night in your house?” Delhey asked Schulenberg.

“I do,” Schulenberg replied. He then pointed to Kenneth Royce.

Daniel Bambery, chief public defender, representing Wirth in the case, asked at the start of his cross examination to be shown notes Schulenberg made about the kidnapping. Judge Alexander ordered a recess to permit the examination.

Wirth originally was to have been represented by John Conlin Jr. However Judge Alexander said this morning that Conlin was no longer Wirth's attorney and after an indigency hearing he appointed Bambery.

Before the examination started this morning Judge Alexander denied a motion by Robert F. Magill Jr. to close the examination to the public and the press. Magill, Royce’s attorney, had said that pre-trial publicity generated by the examination would deny his client a fair trial. 

Szynwelski is represented by Gerald Matuszak.