1838
In 1838 William Morrice, newly married, came to the area, bought 160 acres north-west of another family's farm and built a cabin; they slept on the ground while wolves howled at the door.
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FILE 401 / 29 June 2023 / 175 MIN / full
We're going to Morris, Michigan, which is central Michigan, about a half hour outside Lansing; it is spelled MORRI CE and is in Shiawassee County. about 0:05:07
In 1838 William Morrice, newly married, came to the area, bought 160 acres north-west of another family's farm and built a cabin; they slept on the ground while wolves howled at the door.
about 0:06:31His three brothers settled nearby and Scots were the first people in the area.
about 0:07:10In 1839 the first Presbyterian church of Bennington was founded, later renamed Morrice, on a platform of abstinence from alcohol.
about 0:07:32The town incorporated in 1911 and celebrated fifteen years later with barbecue lunches, free coffee, a three-legged race, a bicycle race, an obstacle race, wrestling, tug of war, a pie-eating contest and greased pole climbing.
about 0:08:34In 1838 William Morrice, newly married, came to the area, bought 160 acres north-west of another family's farm and built a cabin; they slept on the ground while wolves howled at the door.
about 0:06:31His three brothers settled nearby and Scots were the first people in the area.
about 0:07:10In 1839 the first Presbyterian church of Bennington was founded, later renamed Morrice, on a platform of abstinence from alcohol.
about 0:07:32The town incorporated in 1911 and celebrated fifteen years later with barbecue lunches, free coffee, a three-legged race, a bicycle race, an obstacle race, wrestling, tug of war, a pie-eating contest and greased pole climbing.
about 0:08:34The town grew in the 1990s as professors at Michigan State University found it a forty-five minute drive, and it is one of the few communities left with no chain stores or franchises.
about 0:09:2132.8%
about 0:13:33White 94.5% · Black 0.7% · Asian 0.0% · Hispanic 3.1%
Ethnicity can overlap race.Property crime
▼ about one third below
Violent crime
▼ under half
Cannibalistic homicides as a share of all killings tracked in the U.S. from 1960 to 2018
0.01%
Three-bedroom, two-bath house, 1,344 square feet
about 0:15:50Three-bedroom, two-bath house, 1,680 square feet
about 0:16:42Three-bedroom, two-bath house, 1,960 square feet
about 0:17:18Houses for sale in the town
about 0:17:25"about one third below"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:23:01
"under half"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:23:07
"1,521"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:12:16
"54%"
Comparison: "way out of whack". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:12:25
"33.4"
Comparison: "much lower than the average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:12:31
"20%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:12:45
"54%"
Comparison: "higher than normal, with a lower divorce rate". Direction: above.
As told in 2023 about 0:13:02
"94.5%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:13:14
"0.7%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:13:18
"0.0%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:13:21
"3.1%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:13:21
"32.8%"
Comparison: "50% is the normal national figure; the highest share here is Catholic". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:13:33
"about $200 below"
Comparison: "national average for median income". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:13:55
"84"
Comparison: "100 is the average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:14:23
"$187,200"
Comparison: "the lowest". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:14:29
"$990"
Comparison: "cheaper than normal". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:14:57
"$78,900"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:50
"$104,900"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:16:42
"$144,900"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:17:18
"four"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:17:25
"0.01%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 2:18:07
4.5 / 5 · average of 2
“A beautiful small town with friendly neighbours, kept clean and nice, with always great service at local businesses.”about 0:10:36
“A small village halfway between Lansing, Flint and Owosso, with easy access to I-69, a bank, post office, hardware, superette, grocery store, gas station, its own class D school and its own police and fire departments.”about 0:10:57
Morrice is a village of 1,521 people in Shiawassee County, central Michigan, half an hour from Lansing. James says locals pronounce it Morris, although the spelling is Morrice. It was settled in 1838 by William Morrice, a Scot who bought 160 acres, built a cabin and slept on the ground while wolves howled at the door. His brothers followed, and in 1839 the first Presbyterian church of Bennington was founded on a platform of abstinence from alcohol; the church later took the town's name. The village incorporated in 1911 and ed the anniversary fifteen years later with barbecue, free coffee, races, wrestling and a greased pole. In the 1990s it grew a little as professors from Michigan State University found the drive manageable, and it remains one of the few communities in the state with no chain stores or franchises.
He was valedictorian of Morrice High School in 1987, ran cross country, belonged to the National Honor Society, the quiz bowl and forensics teams, and served as senior class treasurer. He took a chemistry degree at Central Michigan University in 1991, interned at Dow Chemical, added a master's at Iowa State and came home to work as a research chemist for Flint Inc, which made commercial printing inks. In his early thirties mutual friends set him up with Emily. They married in 2001, bought a house at West Tyrrell Road and had four children, a son in 2003 and three daughters in 2004, 2007 and 2010. They kept goats, chickens, ducks and rabbits on five acres, took annual holidays to Disney World and seemed, by Emily's account, to be doing well. He later worked for American Chemical Technologies in Fowlerville and earned more than $100,000 a year.
A couple of weeks after the youngest child was born in 2010, Emily noticed a change. He began saying that he was not his mother's son but her brother, that the family was hiding an inheritance from him and that people were watching to see that he said and did the right things. He was diagnosed in 2010 and again in 2012 with severe recurrent chronic major depression with psychotic features, adjustment disorder with depression, anxiety, paranoid schizophrenia and borderline personality traits, and was hospitalised repeatedly. He took his medication only briefly, and when he stopped he watched torture films, talked to himself, wandered outside all night, threatened the children's animals and said his son was not his. He also admitted affairs with men he met online. Emily moved out with the children in May 2012 and filed for divorce. American Chemical Technologies had sacked him in February 2019 after twelve years. Jamie left in September 2019.
Kevin Bacon was born in 1994 in Swartz Creek, Michigan, the son of Carl and Pamela Bacon and brother of Jennifer. He was in the band and among the top ten graduates of Swartz Creek High School, then worked as a receptionist at the JC Penney beauty salon with ambitions to be a stylist. He was a large man, six foot two or three and about 280 pounds, bald by twenty-five and given to dyeing what hair he had in bright colours. Friends described depression, body image problems, self-harm and an overdose in October 2018 after seeing A Star Is Born, and said he looked for affection on dating apps, often attaching himself to men he called projects.
Carlson travelled by bus to Michigan. He went back to the house because his return ticket was a week away, and left two days later. On 15 October neighbours reported a man searching a ditch near the house. Police had been called to the house about a dozen times in seven years.
Kevin Bacon, then 25, arranged through Grindr to meet a 50-year-old bearded man calling himself Olicos. At 6.12 p.m. he texted his roommate Michelle Myers to say he would be out late. He hung the body upside down from the ceiling with ropes and pulleys and bodybuilding weights, letting the blood drain through a trap door onto the dirt outside. He removed the testicles, cooked them in a frying pan with Worcestershire sauce and ate them, taking a photograph. At 2.15 a.m. on Christmas morning he texted Carlson that he had killed Kevin Bacon, with the photograph attached.
Carl Bacon expected his son for breakfast at 9 a.m. When Kevin did not answer his phone all day he called police at 5 p.m. The car was found in a plaza car park near a Family Dollar with his phone, wallet and clothes inside. Friends searched fields and woods near Sports Creek Raceway on 26 and 27 December. Trooper Robert Viviano found the hidden room and Bacon hanging upside down, naked. A dehydrator he had ordered was intercepted in the post. Bacon's DNA was found in the frying pan and on the knife, and the cause of death was blood loss from sharp force injuries to the neck.
Kevin Bacon's family raised $36,000 for his funeral after Jeffrey Star donated $20,000; his parents later divorced.
December 2019 / his home at West Tyrrell Road, Morrice, Michigan
As told in the episode, on 29 June 2023.
Accused
Public places are marked on the map.
crime scene
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