New details emerge about person of interest in Oakland County Child Killer case

FENTON, Mich. (WXYZ) - The 7 Action News Investigators are uncovering new information about the latest lead in the Oakland Co Child Killer case.

Investigator Heather Catallo was the first break the news that the police and prosecutors were looking a new person of interest – and she has new details about Arch Sloan.

Detectives have been crossing the state, investigating Sloan, including visits to his family’s old house in Fenton.

That’s where you can see handprints left behind in a concrete slab, and the name Sloan written in the concrete where an old chimney used to be.

Tricia Sample lives there now, and she was shocked to learn Sloan lived in the Fenton farmhouse in early 1980’s. The 70-year-old is in prison for sex crimes, and he was an early suspect in the Child Killings.

“My kids are freaked out. My kids are totally freaked out. My son is 10, he doesn’t even want to come home,” Sample told Catallo.

Sample says she’s had visits in the last few years from two different investigators, including a detective from the Michigan State Police.

“She was from the cold case. And just wanted to look around the property, thought there might have been an old camper back there. Which there wasn’t. She just wanted to look around,” said Sample.

Prosecutors and Oakland County Child Killer Task Force detectives want to know if anyone remembers seeing Sloan driving any of these vehicles:

• A blue 1971 blue Ford pickup, often with a camper attached
• A 1969 black Chevy pickup, often with a camper attached
• A 1966 Pontiac Bonneville.

Between 1976 and 1977, four children were abducted and murdered in Oakland County. Now prosecutors say a hair found in Sloan’s Bonneville matches hairs found on the two male victims, Mark Stebbins and Timothy King. So far, there’s no genetic material link to those hairs and the girls, Kristine Mihelich and Jill Robinson.

Sloan was born in California, PA. His family moved to Detroit in 1954, when Arch Sloan was about 13-years-old. He dropped out of Cooley High School in the 10th grade. He later moved back to Pennsylvania to live with his grandparents. In Pennsylvania, Sloan was convicted of criminal sexual conduct. When he got out of prison in 1975, he was paroled to Southfield, where joined his family.

Mark Stebbins, the first victim of the Child Killer, was found in Southfield.

Sloan worked as a tow truck driver and mechanic at two different places during the time of the murders: McCracken’s Service Station in Farmington Hills, and Styres Standard Station in Farmington.

The 7 Action News Investigators have also learned that Sloan once worked as a volunteer firefighter in Pennsylvania. Sources say that fire department gave badges to its firefighters. That could be significant in the case, since it’s long been a theory that the killer or someone helping the killer had some sort of symbol of authority, to get a child to trust him.

If you have any information, please call the Oakland County Child Killer hotline, 1-800-442-7766.