Convicted child rapist and murderer Arthur Ream indicated to detectives shortly before his death that he may have been responsible for the deaths of several other girls.
Ream was serving a life sentence for the 1986 murder of 13-year-old Cindy Zarzycki, whose body was discovered in the woods of Warren, suburban Detroit, in 2008.
Although they lacked sufficient evidence, Warren authorities were convinced that Ream was responsible for the disappearances of at least four other girls: Kimberly King, Kellie Brownlee, Kim Larrow, and Connie Royce.
Before Ream died of cancer in August, Detective Sgt. Jim Twardsky met with him twice a month and begged him to confess.
Convicted child rapist and murderer Arthur Ream indicated to detectives shortly before his death that he may have been responsible for the deaths of several other girls.
In his chilling final words, the alleged child killer told Detective Twardsky that he would likely be convicted of their murders.
“He never admitted to doing it, but he did specifically say that a jury would clearly convict him of it,” the investigator said. WDIV.
Detective Twardsky was ultimately unable to extract an explicit confession from Ream, who was known to enjoy playing “mind games” with law enforcement.
Twardsky said, “He was a bad guy at first.” In the end he was a bad guy. At first he liked to mess with the police. In the end he liked to mess with the police. (He was) just a bad person in every way.’
Warren authorities believe Ream is responsible for King and Brownlee’s disappearances
The investigator spent more than 50 hours interviewing Ream and felt there were several moments when the convicted killer seemed on the verge of bragging or offering details about other murders.
“It just got to a frustrating point because there were several points where he said, ‘I can see why you think it’s me. “It sure seems like something I could have done, but I didn’t.”
Detective Twardsky believes Ream never admitted anything because he was “wired differently.”
‘It’s a very tough interview. He doesn’t express emotions or feel fear, joy or any emotion like the rest of us.
Detectives have also explored whether or not Ream is responsible for the disappearances of O’Dell and Larrow.
Twardsky characterized the late killer as an “extremely intelligent (and) extremely manipulative” man. He said Ream didn’t see his victims as people, but rather as “pawns in his little game.”
‘Talking to (Ream), you wouldn’t suspect that he’s a bad person or that he’s evil.
“But he has done bad things and is clearly able to hide his emotions well.”
Authorities had previously attempted to link Ream to the murder of King, who disappeared at age 12 in 1979, and the murders of Brownlee, 17, Larrow, 15, and Nadine O’Dell, 16, all of whom They disappeared in 1981 and 1982.
In 2018, police raided a Detroit warehouse where the killer once operated a carpet business after other prisoners said Ream bragged about killing four or six other girls. Ream failed a subsequent polygraph test.
In the warehouse, the police could not find human remains, but managed to discover “valuable documents.”
Despite this, Ream maintained his innocence and scoffed at the authorities’ efforts.
“To be honest with you, on one hand I was laughing out loud and on the other, I was angry,” Ream told the Detroit Free Press. ‘So, you take it for what it is. As far as I know, there are no bodies there.
It was in this same warehouse that Zarzycki died in 1986. Ream maintained that his death was an accident.
Zarzycki was dating Ream’s son. He killed the 13-year-old girl after trying to approach her.
He initially evaded blame and the case was frozen for many years. However, in 1998, he was found guilty of her murder after authorities reactivated their investigation.
At the time of his conviction for Zarzycki’s murder, Ream was already serving a 15-year sentence for an unrelated sexual abuse charge involving a 14-year-old girl.
He was later temporarily released to lead police to Zarzycki’s body.
He told investigators that Zarzycki’s body was buried near a stream.
Ream also drew a map of the site and spent about an hour at the search site with authorities before leading police to the spot where he buried her body in a shallow grave.
Authorities said Reams had an unhealthy obsession with girls.