Authorities Suspend Dig For Bodies In Macomb County

MACOMB TOWNSHIP, MI — Police have reportedly stopped the search for the bodies of up to seven young girls on a plot of land in Macomb Township. The search started May 7 when police began looking for clues in a cold case from 40 years ago in the wooded area they called “a gravesite.” The investigation was led by the Warren Police Department and centered around the case of 12-year-old Kimberly King, from Warren, who disappeared in 1979.

Police said they believed up to six other missing girls could be buried in the property near 23 Mile Road and North Avenue, along the North Branch Clinton River.

Rain and mud slowed the search over the weekend and the operation was finally suspended Tuesday afternoon. No human remains were found, only clues police did not identify but said made them "cautiously optimistic" they'd find bodies.

Warren Mayor Jim Fouts told Channel 4 that police are weighing whether to excavate three other locations in the state where they believe the killer could have taken the girls who disappeared decades ago, including two other spots in Macomb County and another in Northern Michigan. Fouts also said officials are not ruling out the Macomb Township area, but may move to a different part of the land.

Police say they believe Arthur Ream, 68, is responsible for the killings of these girls they’re looking for. Ream, who is currently serving a life sentence at Michigan’s Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility in Muskegon Heights, was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 13-year-old Cindy Zarzycki, whose remains were uncovered in 2008 near the same area where police just conducted their search.

In 1975, Ream was charged with taking indecent liberties with a child and sentenced to five years in prison, according to Michigan Department of Corrections records. In 1996, he pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor between 13 and 15 years old, the records show.

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