In March 1969, Jane Mixer, a 23-year-old University of Michigan law student, posted a note on a campus bulletin board looking for a ride home to Muskegon. She never made it.
Her body was found the next morning in a cemetery, shot in the head and strangled with a pair of stockings. A scarf covered her face, and a copy of Catch-22 rested on her chest. Police believed she was the victim of the “Co-Ed Killer” terrorizing the Ann Arbor area at the time — but the details didn’t quite match the other murders.
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The Silent Witnesses
There were potential witnesses — people who had seen Jane the night before — but fear, confusion, and time blurred their accounts. The trail went cold. For over three decades, Jane’s murder remained unsolved, her case file collecting dust in a police storage room. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A Break in the Case
In 2001, a breakthrough came — not from a witness stepping forward, but from science. DNA testing on evidence from Jane’s clothing matched a man named Gary Leiterman, who was in his 20s at the time of the murder and living in the area.
Leiterman claimed innocence, saying he had never met Jane Mixer. Still, prosecutors built a case around the DNA, and in 2005 he was convicted of her murder. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Witness Who Finally Spoke
It wasn’t until years later that a witness — a former acquaintance of Leiterman — publicly stated that Leiterman had admitted to being involved in “something bad” back in the 1960s. But by then, the trial was over, and questions lingered about whether justice was truly served. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lingering Shadows
The Jane Mixer case is a stark reminder of how silence — whether from fear, uncertainty, or doubt — can allow decades to pass before the truth comes out. Sometimes, the witness isn’t missing… they’re just quiet. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Question for readers:
If you held information that could solve a case, even if it was decades old, would you speak up — or would you stay silent?
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