On April 7, 1982, in Yale, Michigan, 50-year-old Elizabeth Bette Giuliani and her four adopted children were found shot to death in their home. A family friend, arriving to pick Bette up for a bowling outing, discovered the bodies of Bette and her children: 19-year-old Eric, 16-year-old Kathleen, 13-year-old Cynthia, and 9-year-old Dean. The medical examiner said 11 shots had been fired from a .22-caliber rifle. The St. Clair County Prosecutor ruled out murder-suicide and labeled the deaths a homicide.

Investigators focused on a 16-year-old acquaintance, James Porter IV, who had been connected to the family through Eric and a dispute over trapping and selling muskrat pelts that reportedly involved money and stolen pelts. Porter was arrested, tried as an adult, convicted by a jury in March 1983 on five counts of first-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. His sentence was later reviewed under changes to juvenile offender law and was ultimately upheld.

Did anyone in Yale at the time know more about the Giulianis’ trapping business or the dispute over pelts?