We’re uncovering new information about the newest person of interest in the Oakland County Child Killer case.
7 Action News Investigator Heather Catallo has new records that show how long Arch Sloan has been under scrutiny – and she’s learned that mislabeled evidence ultimately led detectives to this break-through in the case.
The 7 Action News Investigators have uncovered new documents that show Arch Edward Sloan has been moved around the state for interviews and polygraphed as part of the Oakland County Child Killer investigation.
Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper announced this week that hair found in Sloan’s 1966 Pontiac Bonneville has the same mitochondrial DNA profile as hairs found on two of the child killer victims. The hairs do not match Sloan – but detectives want to know who else may have used Sloan’s vehicle.
Now new records we’ve obtained reveal how long the joint Task Force that’s made up of Michigan State Police and Oakland County Sheriff’s investigators has been working on the convicted pedophile as a person of interest in the 36-year-old case.
Back on September 2, 2010, the state police obtained a Writ of Habeas Corpus to move Sloan from the Ernest Brooks Correctional Facility in Muskegon to the state police post in Grand Haven for an “investigatory interview.”
Then, about three months later, MSP Task Force detectives obtained an order to polygraph and interview Sloan on November 29, 2010. Court records show Sloan was then put into the custody of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office for “investigative purposes.”
More recently in early 2012, this order was issued to bring Sloan once again from his prison cell in Muskegon to the Oakland County Jail for an “ongoing criminal investigation.”
As the 7 Action News Investigators were the first to report last year, both Oakland County and Wayne County were using top-secret grand juries to investigate the unsolved murders. While all four children were abducted from Oakland County cities, the body of the last victim - Timothy King – was left in Livonia, giving Wayne County some jurisdiction.
Both counties have been pursuing Sloan – with detectives from multiple agencies visiting the home in Fenton where he lived with his siblings and parents in the early 1980s.
“There was a knock on my door from the Wayne County prosecutor, wanting to know if I knew a Sloan, a brother, and I said no,” Tricia Sample told 7 Action News Investigator Heather Catallo.
Sources are now telling us that Wayne County investigators working with the state police went looking for evidence in 2009. Surprisingly, they found human hair in MSP’s possession that was wrongly labeled as animal hair. Eventually those hair samples were sent to the FBI Lab at Quantico – and later connected Sloan’s Bonneville to the victims.
Oakland County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Paul Walton says he requested a new review of all the physical evidence in the case – which turned up another hair that was found in Timothy King’s nasal cavity that had not been analyzed yet. Walton says they now know that hair also matched the one from Sloan’s car – and they want as much information as possible from the public on Sloan.
“After there was a discussion about this we were at a point in the investigation where a lot of the factual errors had to be corrected and it was important now to get the public’s involvement and knowledge about the case and hopefully some great tips and we are extremely positive about the tips we have gotten right now,” said Walton.
People are coming forward, but the Child Killer Task Force is still asking for tips on Arch Edward Sloan. If you remember anything please call 1-800-442-7766.
