Since starting this petition, I’ve been in communication with one brave survivor. A survivor’s voice is the one that matters most here. This is who the memorial is really about. Today, I want to share his perspective.
When I asked him about the concept for the plaque, his reply sparked a disturbing conversation:
“I would prefer to see the names of the children that died there on the plaque.”
He went on to describe his first-hand experience on North Fox Island:
• He recalled that when he and the other boys arrived by plane, one boy ran off and was never seen again.
• He described watching another boy fall into a pit full of snakes. “The whole island was infested,” he told me. “It looked like a cemetery.”
• He recounted Francis Shelden personally flying him off the island. While flying over Lake Michigan, Shelden tipped the plane sideways and said: “Wouldn’t it be a shame if you fell out?”
The survivor believes the original investigation into the island was shallow and incomplete. His greatest concern now is that human remains may still be present on North Fox Island.
Above all else, he wants to see a proper forensic investigation. He believes a team with cadaver dogs, ground-penetrating radar, and specialists in forensic and environmental science could uncover the truth.
To this day, he remains baffled at how and why this was never done after Gerald Richards’ arrest.
As I said in my earlier legislative update, I don’t have a background in government or politics. Likewise, I have no training in forensic science. What I do know is this: survivors like him are asking for answers. I will support any serious effort to pursue an investigation, and I believe many others will too.
I would like to close with the survivor's own words:
We are looking for people who need to know the truth.
The perpetrators were rich and could hide many things. There needs to be accountability for the victims. Truth needs to be told to stop this from continuing. We are trying to put a team together to go to the Island, to find unmarked graves of the little boys that never came home.
We would like to find people with ground-seeking radar, search dogs, and maybe even a medium to join us in our search. Being a grassroots project, we could use donations to help with the search.