Prior to the March 1, 2010 telephone advice from Jessica Cooper that Busch was not a suspect, my family had requested only two documents concerning Tim’s death. First, after Christopher Busch was identified, Cathy’s attorney friend, Lisa Milton, requested a copy of his suicide report from the Bloomfield Township Police Department on January 24, 2008. The Township replied that the file had been destroyed and therefore could not be produced.
Twenty three months later, on December 3, 2009, Heather Catallo of Channel 7 gave me the suicide report. Interestingly, when I received the Busch file from the Michigan State Police on December 15, 2010, there was a note that the suicide report had been delivered to the Michigan State Police in February 2008.
In 2011, I visited the Township Police Department for an explanation. The Township advised me that it received a call in February from the Michigan State Police and an officer was instructed to locate the file. After a day and a half he determined that the file had been misplaced and delivered it to the State Police. However, the Department took no action to advise Milton. At our office when we destroy a file we add it to a destroyed file list but apparently the Bloomfield Township Police Department does not keep tract of destroyed files. The Township should adopt this practice.
In early November 2009, my secretary also called the Genesee County Circuit Court and asked for the criminal files on Christopher Busch and Gregory Greene. She was advised the Court could not locate the Greene file and that the Busch file was in the archives. She would order the file from the archives and make it available in a few days. When I called the Clerk for the Busch file the Clerk advised me that the file could not be located. On February 17, 2010, Catallo gave me both files.
These are not be the only incidences when the responsible government officials made files available to the media which have been denied to the King family. I will discuss these future media disclosures in later chapters. The victims should be entitled to the same or better treatment as the media.