WARREN, Mich. – Suspected serial child killer Arthur Ream is dead, and a detective close to the case shared some of his last words.
READ: Inside the mind of Arthur Ream, convicted killer writing behind bars
Ream was serving a life sentence for the murder of Cindy Zarzycki, a 13-year-old girl from Eastpointe who went missing in 1986, at the time of his death.
He was linked to the disappearance of at least four other girls -- Kimberly King, Kellie Brownlee, Kim Larrow, and Connie Royce -- but police couldn’t find enough evidence to convict him in those cases.
“He was a bad guy at the beginning,” Warren police Detective Sgt. Jim Twardsky said. “He was a bad guy at the end. He enjoyed messing with cops at the beginning. He enjoyed messing with cops at the end. Just an all-around bad person.”
Twardsky said he was meeting with Ream about twice a month by the end of Ream’s life. He shared some of the final words Ream said before his death.
“He never admitted to doing it, but he did specifically say that a jury would clearly convict him for it,” Twardsky said.
In total, Twardsky spent 50+ hours interviewing Ream, and he said there were several times when he and his partner thought Ream was at least considering bragging or offering information about other crimes.
“But he never actually did,” Twardsky said. “I think that a guy like him is wired differently. It’s a very tough interview. He doesn’t express emotion or feel fear or joy or any emotions like the rest of us, so that’s challenging."
Twardsky said Ream didn’t view alleged victims as people, but as pawns in his “little game.”
The life sentence gave Twardsky no leverage in talks with Ream, he said.
“We tried to maybe see if he would brag about it or just want to get some notoriety, and, quite frankly, I think he just enjoyed knowing something we didn’t know," Twardsky said.
You can watch Karen Drew’s full interview with Twardsky here:
