Timothy

Short Biography

Timothy King, 11, borrowed 30 cents from his older sister and left his home in Birmingham, skateboard in hand, to buy candy at a drugstore on nearby Maple Road on Wednesday, March 16, 1977, at about 8:30 pm He left the store by the rear entrance, which opened to a parking lot shared with a supermarket, and vanished. An intensive search was executed that covered the entire Detroit metropolitan area, and there was widespread media coverage, already heavy with coverage of the previous three slayings. In an emotional television appeal, Timothy's father, Barry King, begged the abductor to release his son unharmed. In a letter printed in the Detroit News, Marion King wrote that she hoped Timothy could come home soon so she could serve him his favorite meal, Kentucky Fried Chicken. In the late evening hours of March 22, 1977, two teenagers in a car spotted his body in a shallow ditch alongside Gill Road, about 300 feet south of Eight Mile Road in Livonia, just across the county line in Wayne County. His skateboard was placed next to his body. His clothing had been neatly pressed and washed. He had been suffocated and sexually assaulted with an object. The postmortem showed that Timothy had eaten fried chicken before he was slain.