Matthew Macon was convicted in 2008 of killing two women in Lansing, Michigan, in August 2007, during a summer in which police linked him to five killings of women in the city from late July onward. Sandra Eichorn was 64 and Karen Delgado-Yates was 41. A jury also found him guilty of torture, of home invasion, and of trying to murder a third woman, who survived. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
He was 27, a parolee and a registered sex offender who had left state prison at the end of June 2007. In interviews after his arrest he told detectives about more deaths: three other Lansing women killed that summer, a woman killed in 2004, and Carolyn Kronenberg, a Lansing Community College professor killed in January 2005. Another man, Claude McCollum, was serving a life sentence for the professor's murder. The reopened investigation of that case freed McCollum in October 2007. In 2010 the Ingham County prosecutor announced that he believed Macon was responsible for five unsolved killings, and that he would not charge him with any of them because no further sentence was possible.
Matthew Emmanuel Macon grew up in Lansing. On the street he was known as "Chilly," City Pulse reported in a review of the case published a decade later. His record went back to his teens: he had a juvenile conviction at 14, and at 16 he was in a treatment program for young sex offenders, where he was told he would need monitoring for life, City Pulse reported. As an adult he served prison time for theft and breaking and entering. He came from a family that already had a long history with the courts, the paper said, including violence by his father.
When Lansing police named him as their suspect at the end of August 2007, Police Chief Mark Alley said Macon was on parole after time in prison and was a registered sex offender. Alley said he had been paroled from state prison on June 26, 2007, the Associated Press reported.
Ruth Hallman was 76. She was a long-time advocate for the Genesee neighborhood on Lansing's west side, and her daughter was a member of the Lansing City Council. People who knew her described a woman who looked out for others: she lent tools to neighbors and offered water to people working nearby. Ray Hall, a police captain on the case, later remembered her as direct and dedicated, and said, "It was always about others." She was attacked on July 26, 2007, and died two days later.
Deborah Kaye Cooke was 36, younger than the other women. She was found dead in Lansing on August 7, 2007. Because her age and circumstances differed from those of the older women, investigators did not at first see her death as part of a pattern, City Pulse reported.
Debra Renfors was 46. She was found dead in Lansing on August 9, 2007, after being beaten. She was the third woman killed in the city in two weeks, and it was after her death that a police detective first said openly that the city had a serial killer.
Sandra Eichorn was 64, a General Motors retiree who enjoyed NASCAR and keno. She was found dead in Lansing on Monday, August 27, 2007. She had been stabbed.
Karen Delgado-Yates was 41 and lived in Lansing. She was found on August 29, 2007, after being beaten, and she died on the way to the hospital. Her brother later said that the families of all the women had come to think of themselves as one family. City Pulse spelled her first name as Louise; the Associated Press, The State News and other reports give it as Karen.
Two earlier deaths were later tied to Macon by his own statements. Barbara Jean Tuttle, 45, was killed in Lansing in 2004, and her killing was unsolved. Carolyn Kronenberg was 60 when she died on January 23, 2005.
Carolyn Kronenberg had taught at Lansing Community College for 25 years. She taught study skills, and she received a faculty award in 1999. She was a mother of two sons and a grandmother of two, and she loved animals and the outdoors, the college's student newspaper, The Lookout, recalled. Students and staff remembered her as a kind and supportive teacher. Barry Stearns, a retired LCC professor who had mentored her when she began teaching on her own, said in her eulogy, "When I talk to my grandchildren about heroes and role models, I will tell them about a spirit called Carolyn."
She was killed in Lansing on Sunday, January 23, 2005.
After her death the college added 80 security cameras, increased police patrols at weekends and grouped classes closer together. In 2006 the college library dedicated a collection of books in her name, each with a tribute plate inside. A sculpture by her former husband was made in her memory and is kept in the college archives.
Two days after the killing, police arrested Claude McCollum, a 26-year-old student who was homeless and often slept on campus. Records from his student identification card placed him in a nearby campus building that morning. He had significant learning disabilities, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. He was arraigned on rape and murder charges on January 26, 2005.
McCollum agreed to talk to police after being told he might help them solve the crime. Detectives asked him how he might, hypothetically, have killed the professor, and he talked about the possibility that he had done something while sleepwalking. Prosecutors presented those answers to the jury as a confession. At his trial, which began on January 27, 2006, before Ingham County Circuit Judge James Giddings, McCollum took the stand against his lawyer's advice. He told the jury that police had described the crime to him in earlier interviews that were not recorded, and that he had repeated their suggestions back to them on tape. "They did trick me," he said. A forensic scientist testified that DNA evidence in the case did not match him and came from an unidentified man. A detective testified that a fiber found on his clothing might have come from her sweater.
The jury convicted McCollum of rape and murder on February 14, 2006, and he was sentenced to life without parole. He was held at the St. Louis Correctional Facility in Gratiot County, and his family maintained throughout that he was innocent. His trial lawyer filed an appeal in May 2006, arguing that the evidence was too thin and that the police conversations had misled him.
When Ruth Hallman was attacked in late July, the police first followed leads that pointed toward local drug dealers. A tip from an informant led to a raid and to the arrest of four men on drug charges, but the men denied any part in her death, City Pulse reported. Captain Ray Hall, Detective Sergeant Joey Dionise and Lieutenant Noel Garcia worked the case from the start.
The deaths of Deborah Cooke and Debra Renfors in early August changed the inquiry. Dionise was the first to say that the city faced a serial killer. Lansing police formed a task force with the Michigan State Police and the FBI, and profilers interviewed the detectives working the cases.
Fear spread through the city. On August 5, 2007, Mayor Virg Bernero and Chief Alley held a community meeting. Some residents left unsatisfied; one called the official response "just a song and dance." Neighborhood leaders organized residents to check on older people who lived alone. "We began knocking on doors and checking on people," one of them said. During the investigation the City Council's public safety committee approved about a dozen street cameras at a cost of about $350,000, which the city was still operating ten years later.
Sandra Eichorn was found dead on August 27. The next day a 56-year-old Lansing woman was attacked and survived. A business card of Macon's became key evidence in the Eichorn case. A police database linked the street name "Chilly" to Matthew Macon. On August 29 Karen Delgado-Yates was found; police kept that case quiet for a time while medical examiners worked out the timeline.
Detectives went first to a work address for Macon in nearby Holt, but he was not there, and officers began a search of the area. Detective Vern Read spotted him in Lansing Township, and after police briefly lost sight of him, Captain Hall and Lieutenant Garcia caught him. He was arrested on a parole violation warrant. "All this for a warrant?" he asked, according to the officers' later account to City Pulse. Dionise remembered his face when he was handcuffed as showing relief; Garcia remembered it differently.
On Friday, August 31, 2007, Chief Alley identified Macon as the man police believed responsible for five homicides and one assault since July 26. He said Macon was expected to be arraigned that day for the murder of Sandra Eichorn, and that police would present all six cases to the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office within a week. "In the next week, we plan to present all six of these cases to the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office," he said. Police also said they were looking at whether Macon was connected to a 2004 killing and to a series of sexual assaults on Lansing's west side in 2003. The Associated Press reported that he might also be charged in the 2004 death of Barbara Jean Tuttle.
Detectives Vern Read and Ron Syka questioned Macon. Over three sessions he described seven killings going back to 2004, City Pulse reported after obtaining an unredacted transcript of the interviews. He spoke about Ruth Hallman and Deborah Cooke, and he said he had been relieved when Claude McCollum was convicted of the professor's murder. The statements were not used at his trial. A redacted transcript was released in 2010.
The prosecutor later said publicly that Macon had confessed to the Kronenberg murder. After the confession, police and the Ingham County chief prosecutor reexamined the evidence in that case. A fingerprint from the evidence in the professor's killing that had never been identified turned out to be Macon's, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
On September 11, 2007, the Ingham County prosecutor's office reopened the Kronenberg investigation. McCollum's family had asked for the case to be looked at again because they saw similarities between her death and the killings Macon was accused of. "Friends and family knew all the time that Claude is innocent," his aunt said.
Analysis of a damaged campus surveillance videotape placed McCollum in a different building at the time of the murder. A state police detective had analyzed the tape before the 2006 trial and written a report concluding that McCollum could not have committed the crime. Prosecutors said they had given the report to the defense; McCollum's trial lawyer said he did not see it. At trial the detective was asked briefly about the video but not about his conclusion, the Registry reported.
In September 2007 the prosecutor joined McCollum's lawyer in asking the Michigan Court of Appeals to vacate the conviction, and the court ordered a new trial. On October 16, 2007, McCollum was released on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond at a hearing in the 30th Circuit Court. About 20 relatives welcomed him home. He was to wear a GPS monitor while he lived with an aunt and awaited a second trial. His lawyer, Hugh Clarke Jr., said, "The videotapes prove that Mr. McCollum was not at the scene." McCollum said he bore no ill will toward police or prosecutors. Later that month the prosecutor dismissed the charges.
A state attorney general's investigation found that video evidence that could have cleared McCollum had not been given to the defense, City Pulse reported, and Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III fired the lead prosecutor in the McCollum case. McCollum sued, and in 2010 he settled for $2 million.
On October 17, 2007, Macon was arraigned in Lansing's 54-A District Court on charges of open murder, torture and first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the death of Karen Delgado-Yates, after the prosecutor's office received new evidence. He already faced an open murder charge in the death of Sandra Eichorn, along with charges of assault with intent to do great bodily harm and first-degree home invasion for the attack on August 28. His lawyer, Mike O'Briant, said he expected more charges. The prosecutor said there was no timetable for any, and that Lansing police were still investigating the other deaths.
O'Briant accused a Michigan State Police detective of breaking a gag order by talking to a newspaper about the case, and a criminal contempt hearing against the detective was scheduled. O'Briant also said he planned to seek a change of venue. "Whether or not the judge holds him in contempt, he still blabbed his mouth," he said.
The preliminary examination ended on November 5, 2007. A forensic expert, Jeffrey Nye, testified that DNA on items recovered in the Eichorn and Delgado-Yates cases matched Macon. District Judge Patrick Cherry sent two counts of open murder, the torture count, the assault count and the home invasion count to circuit court. He dismissed the criminal sexual conduct count, saying, "The evidence on that is sufficiently sketchy."
Macon's trial began in May 2008 in Ingham County Circuit Court. He faced two counts of first-degree murder, for Sandra Eichorn and Karen Delgado-Yates, along with torture, home invasion, and assault with intent to murder in the attack on the woman who survived. Assistant prosecutor Katherine Emerson tried the case. O'Briant called no witnesses. The jury deliberated for about two hours and convicted Macon on all counts.
On June 18, 2008, Chief Judge William Collette sentenced him to life in prison. Macon was 28. The first-degree murder counts carried life without parole. O'Briant said Macon planned to appeal. By 2010 his appeals had been lost, City Pulse reported.
On March 1, 2010, Prosecutor Dunnings announced that he was closing five unsolved killings: those of Ruth Hallman, Barbara Jean Tuttle, Deborah Cooke, Debra Renfors and Carolyn Kronenberg. He said he believed Macon had committed them. "We have solid reason to believe that the prisoner Macon is responsible for these crimes," he said, citing Macon's statements and other evidence. Michigan law allowed no greater sentence than the one Macon was already serving, he said, and any trial would end with Macon returning to his cell for the rest of his life. He also said he feared Macon would turn the proceedings into a spectacle and would try to "belittle and intimidate the survivors of his victims." Dunnings said he had consulted Lansing police, the families and his own staff. Chief Alley supported the decision.
Not every family agreed. Ruth Hallman's daughter said her family had wanted a trial; the decision, she said, left them feeling like "victims all over again." "There is no sentence that will bring her back," she said. Karen Delgado-Yates's brother said it pained him that the other families would never have the closure of a verdict. "We're all family now," he said.
None of the five killings was charged. Macon's convictions cover only the deaths of Sandra Eichorn and Karen Delgado-Yates and the attack on the woman who survived.
Ten years after the killings, Ruth Hallman's daughter said she was still trying to understand her mother's death. She said she found a partial answer in McCollum's release. "She wouldn't have wanted to see somebody put away for something he hadn't done," she said. The woman who survived recalled a visit from the mayor while she was in the hospital. Ray Hall went on to lead the police department at the University of Michigan-Flint and said the Lansing experience had shaped his view of street cameras; Lansing's later chief, Michael Yankowski, also praised the cameras.
Ten years after the killings, City Pulse reported that Macon was held at the St. Louis Correctional Facility near Alma and that he declined to be interviewed. At Lansing Community College, the professor's killing changed campus security, and students in 2007 criticized the college and its police for their handling of the case.
The five killings closed in 2010 rest on Macon's statements and on the other evidence the prosecutor cited; none was tested in court. They are attributed to him by the prosecutor and confessed by him, not proven against him.
Reports differ on several details. City Pulse placed Carolyn Kronenberg's death in 2004; The State News and the National Registry of Exonerations give January 23, 2005. One State News report gave the month of McCollum's conviction as April 2006; the Registry and other State News reports give February 14, 2006. City Pulse gave Karen Delgado-Yates's first name as Louise.
Police in 2007 also examined whether Macon was connected to a series of sexual assaults on older women in 2003. No charges against him over those attacks were reported.
2004: Barbara Jean Tuttle, 45, is killed in Lansing; the case stays unsolved.
January 23, 2005: Carolyn Kronenberg, 60, a Lansing Community College professor, is killed.
January 25 to 26, 2005: Claude McCollum is arrested and arraigned on rape and murder charges.
January 27, 2006: McCollum's trial begins before Judge James Giddings.
February 14, 2006: McCollum is convicted; he is sentenced to life without parole.
May 2006: McCollum's appeal is filed.
June 26, 2007: Macon is paroled from state prison.
July 26, 2007: Ruth Hallman, 76, is attacked; she dies two days later.
August 5, 2007: The mayor and police chief hold a community meeting.
August 7, 2007: Deborah Cooke, 36, is found dead.
August 9, 2007: Debra Renfors, 46, is found dead.
August 27, 2007: Sandra Eichorn, 64, is found dead.
August 28, 2007: A 56-year-old woman survives an attack.
August 29, 2007: Karen Delgado-Yates, 41, is found and dies on the way to the hospital.
Late August 2007: Macon is arrested on a parole violation warrant.
August 31, 2007: Police name Macon as their suspect in five homicides and one assault.
September 11, 2007: The prosecutor reopens the Kronenberg case.
September 2007: The Court of Appeals grants McCollum a new trial on a joint motion.
October 16, 2007: McCollum is released on bond.
October 17, 2007: Macon is arraigned on charges in the Delgado-Yates case.
October 2007: The charges against McCollum are dismissed.
November 5, 2007: Judge Patrick Cherry binds Macon over for trial.
May 2008: A jury convicts Macon of two counts of first-degree murder and other charges.
June 18, 2008: Macon is sentenced to life without parole.
March 1, 2010: The prosecutor closes five killings he attributes to Macon, without charges.
2010: McCollum settles his lawsuit for $2 million.
About 2017: City Pulse reports Macon held at the St. Louis Correctional Facility.