THE SUICIDE KILLER

 “The profane, drunken murderer, immured in his cell, was a broken-hearted penitent, a man of prayer. His prison now a Bethel indeed.”- Rev. Ansel Eddy Black Jacob 1842   

    Making his notes, closing the ledger with a slam, the keeper took William Freeman roughly by the arm and led him to a stool. Sitting him down, in handcuffs and leg manacles, he clipped the inmate’s long hair with sheep shears, lathered soap, splashed cold water, and took a straight razor to his face and head, completing the job. Issuing him horizontally striped pants and shirt, Bill was led through the dark, silent corridors to his waiting cell. 

      Unlocking the iron door, William Freeman was quickly pushed in his cell and read the rules. 

   Take off yer clothes. Get in yer hammock. Don’t swing it out. If I hear a squeak I’ll be back with the cat. Nothing in the cells. No book, ‘cept that bible. No pencil, no chalk, no slate, no fork, no knife, no spoon. When you hear the morning bell, get yourself up, get dressed and wait. Stand, don’t sit at the door. Follow my orders and watch how you walk. Shuffle, don’t lift yer feet. Don’t look at no one but me. Shuffle like the others and we’ll find you a place in the shop after breakfast. Keep your mind on your work and don’t talk unless I asks you something. Work the day and then we do it all over again the next. Do that and you’ll be fine. Don’t do any of this and it’ll be the cat.

    

    There’s one more Osterhout who did hard time I want to cover. If incarceration can be seen as a metaphorical space of confinement (no matter where the prison is located, or in what era) young alien Stephen Osterhout is applicable and relevant in exposing these murders, and incarcerations of family members. 

     A short legal order from the Michigan Supreme Court on June 17, 2016 states: On order of the Chief Justice, having received notice that defendant-appellant [Stephen Osterhout] died during the pendency of this appeal, the application for leave to appeal is DISMISSED.

Quoting from a Jan. 29, 2016 Capital News Service item by Jason Kraft:

    “A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that juveniles sentenced to life in prison should be guaranteed a shot at parole came three months too late for one Michigan man, Stephen Osterhout of Gaylord saw no end to his lifelong imprisonment, according to his longtime friend Linda Day. He took his life behind bars this past October.” 

I tracked down, and reached out to Linda Day. Here’s her return email:

Hi Mike,

    Yes, I knew Stephen for 20 years, up to the time of his death. His suicide was devastating to me and not expected. I work at a university, and long ago, Stephen wrote to one of the professors in the department in which I worked, with some questions. He had found the professor’s name in his dictionary! The professor suggested I become a pen pal to Stephen, and write him a letter. I did and that began our long friendship. Have you been in touch with his parents? I spoke to his mom a couple of times after Stephen’s suicide but then was not able to re-establish contact. I would be happy to talk to you about Stephen, but would like to know if you have spoken to his parents before I do that.

All the best,

Linda 

   The front page of the April 21, 1988 Gaylord Herald Times shows Stephen A. Osterhout being led in handcuffs out of the local police station. He’s slight, unsmiling, with long bangs, wearing a Village Video tee shirt and a thin gold chain. He looks like any other sixteen year old kid in 1988. A giant cop, holding the cuffed Osterhout boy by his arm, smiles for the camera. The headline reads: MOTION FILED TO TRY YOUTH, 16 IN CHEBOYGAN MAN’S SLAYING. Like Bill Freeman, it’s impossible to read the look on Stephen’s face.

    Stephen Osterhout, then a freshman in high school, was convicted of murdering Dean Edward Lyons, 28, a local Cheboygan businessman and seminary student. Described by the paper as a “quiet kid,” the arrest of the slight murderer took the town by surprise. The Osterhouts, although not native to the area, are said to have been in Gaylord “quite awhile.” Another reporter at the Sebewaing Blade described the family as “kind of low profile folks.” Osterhout’s victim Dean Lyons, was a partner in a family run auto parts store and “was studying for the ministry at Central Bible College in Springfield, MO.”  Stephen Osterhout had shot a local seminarian in a botched robbery attempt, and after going on the run, was captured four days later in the thick woods behind his grandparent’s house. 

     Although still a minor, Stephen Alan Osterhout received a sentence of life without parole for the Lyon’s murder. As his pen pal  Linda Day explained in Kraft’s article, “Osterhout was inquisitive, intelligent and curious…Prison staff nicknamed him “professor.” He “dedicated much of his free time to researching the Supreme Court’s impending ruling that would decide his fate….He couldn’t stand the idea of being in prison for the rest of his life. I don’t understand why he didn’t want to see their decision. We have been waiting for this, and just three months…that’s the horror.”

      On Jan. 26, 2016 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juveniles sentenced to life without parole was excessive and that the courts should guarantee these inmates a shot at parole. At the time of the ruling 350 inmates in Michigan who had committed capital crimes as juveniles were eligible for redress of their sentences. But the system was reticent to speed the process, and most inmates were never retried. Stephen would not live to see the ruling. The Professor’s death at forty-three, in October 2015 at the Baraga Correctional Facility, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, is officially listed as suicide. After a short investigation, the case was closed. In all my research I’ve only come across one other family suicide, an upstate timber framer, who hung himself in the barn he built. I know the feeling.