(WXYZ) — One of the key suspects in Michigan’s most infamous unsolved serial killings has died.
Watch Heather Catallo's video report:
7 Investigator Heather Catallo has learned, in his final hours, detectives tried one more time to get Arch Sloan to talk. For years, police have considered Sloan a key suspect in the Oakland County Child Killer case.
Related: 2016 coverage from WXYZ: More details emerge about Arch Sloan
Sources told Catallo that the 84-year-old convicted pedophile gave law enforcement new information to pursue in the case.
Between 1976 and 1977, Mark Stebbins, Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich and Timothy King were abducted along the Woodward Corridor in southern Oakland County and later murdered. Their killer — or killers — have never been charged with their deaths.
A Michigan Department of Corrections spokesperson says Sloan had been placed on hospice care on June 9 and later died on June 12, 2026. The 7 Investigators learned detectives were able to visit Sloan in his final hours and question him one last time about the child killings.
Sloan has been locked up since 1984 after pleading guilty to raping a 10-year-old boy. Court records show the crime took place inside Sloan’s camper that he parked at the Packard Plant in Detroit. That case ended a 14-year stretch of arrests and convictions for various sex crimes with minors between Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Back in 1976, Sloan’s disturbing criminal history prompted his parole officer to tell Southfield police to investigate Sloan after Mark's body was found at 10 Mile and Greenfield roads, about seven miles from Sloan’s house.
At the time, Sloan agreed to let police search his 1966 Pontiac Bonneville, but he was not arrested for the murder. Decades later, new testing at the FBI lab revealed the hairs recovered in that search would connect Sloan’s car to hairs found on both Mark and Timothy. But prosecutors say the mitochondrial DNA does not belong to Sloan.
“The investigators took tapings from the interior of the car, and on those tapings were small hairs, fibers and fur,” said former Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper at a press conference on July 17, 2012. “That testing however revealed that the hairs do not come from the driver of that vehicle. The driver of that vehicle is not the donor of either the hair found in the Bonneville or the hairs found on the boys.”
Related: Oakland County Child Killings: 50 years later, police hope new tech could help crack case
The 7 Investigators were the first to report that Sloan was polygraphed in recent years, and police sources told Catallo that Sloan failed the lie detector test when he was asked about murder of Timothy.
Related: Former neighbor of person of interest in OCCK case speaks; tells story that haunts her to this day
Now Sloan is gone. And the victims’ families are still searching for justice.
“I don't have the evidence to conclude that he would be the person who killed Kris or the other children, but clearly by his rap sheet, he has spent his life ruining the lifetime for many, many people, and that's just disgusting,” said Erica Ascroft, Kristine’s sister.
If you have a story for Heather Catallo, please email her at hcatallo@wxyz.com