They all contributed to the case in their own ways. Each doing his part. Together, they were able to apprehend this serial killer who rampaged Detroit's Woodward Avenue for several months in 1991 and 1992, leaving 11 women dead. In today's post we celebrate several of the law enforcement officers who worked the case of Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins, all of which I have been able to speak with personally for the book, and a few of which we have unfortunately lost in the couple years since then.
Ron Sanders was the seasoned cop who questioned Atkins for Detroit police shortly after the arrest, and who was able to elicit the confessions from him. Sanders suffered health issues before the January 1994 trial came around and was unable to testify, but he lived decades longer, even penning a book "Concerned But Not Consumed." He passed away in 2023.
Royce Alston, shown above when he was a trooper for the Michigan State Police, was the officer who took survivor Darlene around the Cass Corridor and Woodward Ave in summer 1992 to try to find the man who had attacked her the previous fall -- a man she knew only as "Tony." Alston has retired to Florida in more recent years.
Jim Dobson, the officer in charge of the case for Highland Park Public Safety, was profiled in this issue of the Sun newspaper in Canada in summer 1992, before Atkins was identified and arrested -- while police were still hunting an unknown killer. You can see Dobson standing at the Monterey Motel (near the story headline). The Sun was the media outlet that coined the term "Crack City Strangler," though the Detroit papers were calling him the Woodward Corridor Killer or Woodward Avenue Strangler. Jim died in late 2023 after a valiant fight with pancreatic cancer.
Craig Pulvirenti, above, and below with his work crew back in the day, responded to three of the Atkins crime scenes for Highland Park Public Safety. He went on to a decorated law-enforcement career, also serving in military intel. He still lives in the Detroit area.
Everett Monroe responded to the Patricia Cannon George crime scene for Detroit police. It was the site of a demolished home on Kenilworth Street, and it was a very rainy morning, he recalled. Monroe went on to work the case of another Detroit serial, John Eric Armstrong, a few years later. More recently, he took a police chief post in Georgia.
John Mattox, left, served as the director of Highland Park Public Safety at the time of the Atkins case, went to several of the crime scenes, and was quoted widely in the media at the time. On the right is Larry Beller, one of Mattox's detectives at HPPS, who was instrumental in the search at the Monterey Motel that uncovered three of Atkins' victims in February 1992. I snapped this photo of the two of them on the day of Jim Dobson's funeral in Metro Detroit, early 2024. and I was honored to attend the funeral with them. Larry passed in fall 2024 -- shockingly, as I had just spoken with him a month or two before, and he seemed to be doing great.
These are not all of the brave officers who worked the case, of course, and many more of them have passed in the 30-plus years since Atkins was arrested. This author salutes each and every one of them, and if you know of others, you are welcome to comment below and share stories.
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