By Jim Larkin
FLINT –
Shannon D. Holihan was 31 years old, had the job of his life and the car of his dreams when his partially-clothed body was found in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant 10 years ago last month – prompting a clash between police and a gay rights group and ending hopes of a reunion with his father and stepsister.
His dream car, a 1994 white Corvette with black leather interior and a tinted moon roof, has never been found, with police believing it has since been chopped up. DNA remains on file in the Flint Police Department, still awaiting a match that would pinpoint his murderer. Flint police and the Triangle Foundation are still at odds over whether everything was done to solve the case.
And questions still swirl for everyone from Deborah A. Bayer, the detective who was in charge in the case, to his father and stepsister, who still wonder about what could have been.
For Bayer, who is now director of emergency services training for Oakland Community College, it's a case that still nags.
"Every once and a while you have an emotional connection to a case. There are just certain ones for whatever reason. This was one for me," Bayer said. "He had a (step)sister out west who kept in very close contact with me and we put a lot of time in it. And, number two, my brother was gay. So there was a connection there for me."
Stepsister Wendy Holihan, a probation officer in Marion County, Ore., was closeted at the time of Shannon's death in Hurley Medical Center on May 30, 1998, three days after – as his autopsy would conclude – blunt force trauma to his head. She now dwells on the opportunities she lost with her stepbrother because she did not come out earlier.
"The loss for me is different because I look at what could have been," said Wendy, 50. "I've often asked myself what would have been if we would have known each other growing up and could have been there for each other."
Alone and cruising
Shannon D. Holihan was alone for much of the night of May 27, when he was seen in his white Corvette in the parking lots of the State Bar and Club Triangle – popular cruising areas for Flint-area gay men – between midnight and 1 a.m. Bayer said his body was found at 8 a.m. in the parking lot of the Empress of China, a restaurant in the same general area of Dort Highway as the two gay bars.
Police, both then and now, gave out scant few details to the public. They reportedly confirmed in 1998 that he was found with partial clothing, but – stung by criticism from the Triangle Foundation – won't even say that now.
But his stepsister, Wendy, said there were no visible injuries from the front of his head and that police told her his injuries were to the back of the head. She added that she was told he was partially clothed but there were no signs of his being sexually assaulted – with skin under his fingernails being submitted for evidence.
Patti Ketchum, 52, of Burton, one of Shannon's best friends, said police told her Shannon was found with only a T-shirt on.
That and other information led the Triangle Foundation to conclude that Shannon's death was a "pick-up" crime.
"Gay men in the Flint area have reported harassment and assaults in the open area near the State Bar," the Triangle Foundation stated in a press release at the time. "Some have indicated that small groups of young men attack gays who socialize in the area by using an individual as a lure to get the prospective victim away from the area to a more secluded spot, where he is overpowered by a target group, beaten and robbed.
"Sometimes sexual transactions occur prior to an assault. This activity describes what anti-violence experts call a 'pick-up' crime scenario…From what we've determined after speaking with witnesses and friends of the deceased, this case has all the indications of a 'pick up' crime."
Bayer said Shannon did not have a steady boyfriend and that he had been known to pick people up. But she said police could not label it as a hate crime, let alone a pick up crime, because they had "extremely little information" in which to determine what led to his death or who might have been responsible. Police had no weapon, no car, and no one who came forward to say they witnessed what happened to Holihan.
"We don't know what happened – if he fought with someone he knew or it was someone he didn't know," Bayer said. "But I didn't get the idea from anyone that he was the kind of guy who would pick a fight with someone."
But he would have fought, said Ketchum, for his car.
"That's the only thing I can think of…that someone wanted his car," she said.
There were other problems that marred the investigation. Bayer said although several friends did all they could to help, including handing out posters seeking information, Shannon's mother – who had a stroke and with whom Shannon lived in Grand Blanc so he could help care for her – could provide very little information about him or his lifestyle.
"Part of the problem was his mom was pretty much in denial that he was gay," Bayer said. "Or maybe that's too harsh. I just don't think she was involved in his lifestyle, so she didn't know much."
And then there was the confusing crime scene itself – a Chinese restaurant parking lot where an employee found an unconscious, partially clothed man when he arrived for work in the morning.
"Part of the problem is it happened in the evening but his body wasn't found until the morning, so it wasn't initially treated as a crime scene. It was treated as a person who was down and needed help," said Wendy Holihan.
Still, police and the Triangle Foundation clashed. The Triangle Foundation said it was obvious Shannon was targeted because he was gay and that the "gay elements" of the murder may have made some within the police department "less aggressive in the investigation."
Bayer, however, said she and her partner spent the better part of a couple of weeks after the crime investigating the case. Wendy Holihan confirmed that Bayer was aggressive in the case and contacted her frequently with updates, sometimes years after Shannon's death, but that as a probation officer who is also gay, she sees both sides of the debate.
Still, Sgt. Greg Hosmer, who as a member of Flint's violent crime task force is in charge of cold case files, bristles at any reference to police not doing their job. He said he hasn't done anything with the Holihan case – the photos of about a dozen other cold case victims are on the wall in his office – in the three years since Bayer retired from the force because she did such an "exhaustive investigation" on it.
"As far as I know the Triangle Foundation has no experience in homicide investigation," Hosmer said. "I've worked with Sgt. Bayer and I know the quality of her work. I'm not going to get in a pissing match with them (the Triangle Foundation)."
Bayer today calls the clash between Triangle and police unfortunate.
"It was more of a police bashing than a 'hey, let's help police,'" she said. "Anyone who knows me knows I put 150 percent into what I do. I still dream of unsolved cases."
But Melissa Pope, director of victim services at the Triangle Foundation, says the organization still stands by its belief that police could have done more and that the Holihan case appears to be a "classic pick up crime" that should have been labeled as a hate crime.
What about Shannon?
Perhaps lost in the frustration over not finding whoever was responsible for Shannon Holihan's death was Shannon Holihan, the person, and the loss that his death left in the lives of those who knew him well.
Six-foot tall and 140 pounds, with dark brown hair and a goatee at the time of his death, he was described by his stepsister, Wendy, as "very social and well liked. Very gregarious." His friend Patti Ketchum said he was a kind person with a good sense of humor, who enjoyed taking long drives in his Corvette and roller blading at Metro Park.
"If anyone had something negative to say, he would always turn it around into a positive. He was just that kind of guy," said Ketchum, who took several vacations with Shannon. "He was the most kind-hearted person you would ever want to meet."
Described as a "computer guru" by his friends and family, he became an upper level computer programmer at Kmart Corp.'s headquarters in Troy after having worked elsewhere at a computer store, 7-11 and Duke's Tape Shack in Flint.
Yet, he had difficulties earlier in life. His father, Dick A. Holihan, 72, of Thetford Township in northern Genesee County, and his mother, Jane of Grand Blanc, were divorced when he was seven and his brother Michael was 9. It was, Dick A. Holihan said, "a bitter divorce to say the least" and he was denied visitation unless it was in his ex-wife's house, which he refused to do. Neither Jane nor Michael Holihan could be reached for comment.
The bitterness led to a complete separation between Jane, Michael and Shannon Holihan and Dick Holihan's family by a previous marriage, which included two boys and two girls, including Wendy Holihan. Still, Wendy Holihan remembers spending summers with Shannon at her dad's house when both were younger. And Ketchum recalls going on many drives with Shannon in which he would drive by that house.
"The funny part was Shannon was very much into computers and I am involved in electronics and computers," Dick Holihan said.
That mutual love eventually led them back together, via the Internet and Wendy Holihan, hundreds of miles away.
"I'm a juvenile probation officer and I remember one of my clients telling me, 'You know, I can find out where you live. All I have to do is go online,'" Wendy Holihan said. "So I went on AOL and did a search for Holihan and found Shannon's name. I instant messaged him and we talked online for quite a while.
"I put him in touch with dad and we made plans to get together…right before he died."
On May 26, 1998 Patti Ketchum said she and Shannon went out for one of their many drives and he dropped her off, noting that he was planning on going out that night. She got a call at 10 a.m. the next day from Shannon's mother, asking her to go to the morgue to identify Shannon's body.
What happened the previous night to Shannon, though, remains a mystery that many still struggle to overcome.
"He was more than just a best friend; he was like a little brother," Ketchum said. "I miss him a lot."
"I keep hoping," Bayer said, "that one day we'll come up with a (DNA) match. I would love to see something come to light."
"I've come to the point that no one can answer the question why, and I guess that will be OK for me," Wendy Holihan said. "Still, I feel bad that he went through what he went through, and that he went through it all alone."
