Why Now? And What’s Next?

In 2012, I heard a ghost story. I was working part-time at the Portage Lake District Library in Houghton, Michigan, while studying for my undergraduate degree at Michigan Technological University (MTU). A coworker came to work one day with a story they recently heard from a patron, and it stuck with me.

A library visitor approached the circulation desk, looking for any historical information available about their property in the Centennial Heights area of Calumet. He recently relocated to the area for a job opportunity, and didn’t waste any time exploring his forested 40-acre plot. It was hunting season, and he spent an evening high up in a tree stand, watching for game in the coming dark. By the time he descended the tree and returned to his home, without a buck to show for his sitting and waiting, he was convinced that something sinister occurred in those woods in the past.

Alone in the tree stand, and enveloped by the night, he heard the cries of a child. His first instinct was to reach for his spotlight. He flipped the switch and scanned the woods, a flood of light across the forest floor, trying to determine exactly where the cries had originated. But when he did so, the weeping subsided. The beam flooded narrow sections of the forest as it scanned, but there was no longer any indication that another person was out there. He turned the light off, only to find that the cries returned. A child’s cry, he was sure now, but again they receded into the brush with a scan of his light. No one was there, but the sounds persisted for some time in the blackness, quieting with any investigation on his part, and at times seeming closer when he allowed himself to return to the total dark.

It was a ghost story, the way he told it, and he wanted to know - what happened out there on my land? The public library didn’t have any archival material that may have helped him find an answer, and a peer sent him to the MTU Library’s Archives, where he apparently discovered exactly what he was looking for. On a return visit to the Portage Lake District Library, he let the staff know that yes, there was a tragedy on his land, and one that would align squarely with his own supernatural experience in the dim forest. A young boy had gone missing, and according to the property owner, the boy’s remains had been discovered somewhere near his new homestead.

I was immediately intrigued. A Keweenaw area cold case I’d never heard of? I grew up in Lake Linden, just down the hill from Calumet, and needed to know more. When did this happen? And to who? And how? I had no other information, and was skeptical of the story I’d heard, because it started with a ghost story that found some confirmation after the fact with further research. I don’t believe in ghosts, at least not as physical apparitions capable of communication. As a teen, my friends and I spent every weekend for an entire summer visiting local haunts, hoping to be convinced of some manifested afterlife to no avail. We never saw or heard anything that couldn’t be explained away by creaking abandoned homes or the beady eyes of raccoons in the dark.

So I went to the MTU Archives myself, seeking some confirmation of the ghost story. And I was in luck; the archives kept a vertical file on all unsolved missing persons cases in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.). If the file serves as an accurate summary, there aren’t many unsolved missing persons cases in the U.P., although considering the sprawling geography of the U.P and it’s mostly sparse population, the number might be surprisingly outsized.

I learned on that day that 11-year old Karl Heikell went missing from his Centennial Heights home on October 31, 1981. A disappearance on Halloween. For our spooked hunter friend, a specter of harvest. I learned that his remains were discovered nearly a year later, on October 2, 1982, in a forested area not far from his home. The newspaper clippings included in the file covered these details, but few others. It wasn’t until I acquired copies of the original Michigan State Police reports into the disappearance and death of the boy that I learned most of what I now know about the case, but even that summary is incomplete. Despite many tips and sightings of the boy in the days following his disappearance and the development of a sometimes convincing suspect, no one would ever be held accountable for the boy’s death.

I sat on this information for years. I re-read the police reports and talked to my family and friends about the mystery. These documents satisfied my curiosity for awhile, but I also considered writing about the case. I couldn’t find the time, and years passed without any additional research on my part. In January of 2022, I decided to summarize case information in a private digital archive for friends that shared an interest in the case. I started speaking with some of the family members of Karl Heikell, and with a former Detective Sergeant that at one time lead the investigation, documenting what they remembered. I considered writing about the case for publication, but still found it difficult to really immerse myself in the work due to my otherwise busy career and family life. So I settled on something in-between. I’d post case information publicly online, with a blog I could update periodically as I found time. And that’s how we end up here, now.

I have no illusions that an amateur sleuth librarian will crack a 40-year old cold case. But I hope this website brings attention to a case that’s had very little of it in decades. Karl’s disappearance and death was investigated for three years. Not a single police report has been recorded in his case file since 1985. I heard once that an advantage detectives have in working decades old cold cases is that allegiances change. Folks who kept a secret for someone 40 years ago may no longer feel an obligation to do so. It’s my hope that if someone alive today has information about Karl’s death, they’ll step forward to say something. And that the Michigan State Police can find reason to actively work this case again.

For my part, there is still a lot of work to be done to fill out the website and make it more accessible. There are several sightings of Karl that I still need to work into The Case page, and you’ll see that happen in the next week or so. Some of the information laid out on that page could use some additional context, and you’ll see new blog posts in the coming weeks that do just that. You can expect more content on Specter of Harvest that provides further information on the location of Karl’s remains, the only named suspect in the original police reports, and my own thoughts on what could have happened to Karl, based on official documents and interviews with family members and other Calumet locals in recent months.

If you have information about the disappearance and death of Karl Heikell, contact Detective Sergeant Jeremy Cleary at the Michigan State Police Calumet Post at 906-337-5145.