Peter John Pete Klavinger Jr, 31, was found dead on the shoulder of I-94 near New Haven after weeks of threats and attempts to evade men described by police as syndicate loan sharks. Authorities portrayed him as a juice victim who owed large sums and had been desperately trying to raise cash; family accounts dispute that characterization, saying he was not the deadbeat police made him out to be.

At the time of his death he was free on a $5,000 bond awaiting trial on conspiracy to sell heroin. He had a criminal history including a 1958 second-degree murder conviction and eight years in prison before parole in 1966. His wife Letha, then 22, reported him missing February 7, 1971; she said he left February 3 with 19-year-old Ramon Rivas, who also disappeared. Investigators later linked a Dearborn Heights man, Gerald H. Flieger, to an attempted extortion of Letha and sought him on a federal flight warrant.

Pete’s son later identified Flieger and Rivas as the killers, alleging both were at some point held and released and that Flieger confessed to another inmate. The case description includes other disappearances investigators tied to the same syndicate activity.