Over the course of my career, I found witness recall to be at times remarkably accurate, and at others incredibly unreliable. Recollection can depend on a number of factors, including the object, person, or type of incident being witnessed; other activities ongoing at the time; the state of mind, mental acuity, physical or mental capacity of the witness; or outside influence (confabulation). As with other subjects, I’ll typically draw on personal experience when providing examples during lectures. It just happens that a recent speaking engagement in the same part of the state as a case consultation nearly 20 years earlier provided a timely and humorous opportunity to do just that.   

For about 15 years, I was assigned to a statewide team that specialized in the investigation and analysis of violent crimes.  There were many times over those years that my colleagues and I traveled across the state in the course of our duties. A number of those trips were to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with my partner, Terry.  

Known for its hunting, fishing, hiking, boating, long winters, and expansive wilderness, the UP (you-pee) as it’s referred to, is made up largely of wilderness, waterways, state and national forests, and hundreds of miles of Great Lakes shoreline. Equal parts picturesque and isolated, the UP is linked to Michigan’s lower peninsula by the historic Mackinac Bridge and bordered by Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Canada. On one hand, think Daniels’ Escanaba in Da Moonlight or Reeve’s Somewhere in Time; or further back, perhaps Anatomy of a Murder – set, filmed, and inspired by an actual 1952 murder in the desolate northern UP settlement of Big Bay.

On the other hand, consider three small but noteworthy universities (Northern Michigan, Michigan Tech, Lake Superior State); billion dollar iron mining and logging industries; massive freighters like the doomed Edmund Fitzgerald moving cargo from Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes through the impressive Soo Locks; the hometown of famed coaching friends Tom Izzo and Steve Mariucci; a whole lot of great hockey; and even a couple U.S. Olympic training centers. The UP has a bit of everything.  

Except an abundance of gas pumps, it turns out. 

Perhaps the link between time passage and sentimentality is at work here, but those UP trips with Terry back in the day are among some of my fondest work memories…largely because of him.

First of all, Terry is one of the finest human beings I’ve ever known. An ‘old soul’ in the greatest sense, there aren’t many like him anymore. He remembers literally everything. He’s a kind, caring, methodical, contemplative, put-others-first-even-if-it-kills-him, humble to a fault rarity. If selflessness, humility, and unassuming intellect were a radical group, he’d be his own sleeper cell. 

And did he take a lot of pictures!  

Everyone gave him a hard time about this, including himself, but whenever I find myself going through old photos, I’m reminded how grateful I am that well before cell phones, he was always ready with a camera, both at work and at my kids’ sporting events. Perhaps it’s no coincidence, then, that his photos immortalized several of those UP trips; the most memorable of which was a single trip involving an unforgettable night clerk, an overconfident boat captain, a questionable walk on the beach, and those gas pumps I mentioned.

It all started some months earlier during a vacation when my family and I traveled through a small UP town called Engadine.  I should note that once outside towns and villages, desolation quickly makes driving most parts of the UP dicey if you’re in need of facilities or fuel.

Inattention during the work trip with Terry that followed resulted in desperate need of both. 

To make matters worse, it was getting late.  Thankfully, the reflective glow of a sign pointing to Engadine appeared in our headlights. Relief swept over me as explained to Terry there was no need to worry, as I had recently passed through that very town and as luck would have it, there was a service station with “pumps as far as the eye can see!” 

Yep, I used those very words as I confidently assured him that not only could we refuel, but maybe even get some ice cream, too.  It was a few miles out of the way, but we were already on fumes and was our only option at this late hour. We made the turn north. 

A couple miles later we rolled into a darkened, deserted Engadine. Population 897.  In the same town I was certain I’d recently visited a petroleum superstore the likes of Buc-ees and Pilot, we instead found a couple of pumps next to a delapidated bait shop, at best.    

Therein lies my point about witness reliability.   

After absorbing some of Terry’s well-deserved harassment, we retraced our route south and continued on, hoping to find a motel for the night before an empty tank made our car a sleeper sofa on the shoulder of US-2.    

Thankfully, we found a place not too far down the road.  A quaint roadside motel along the northern shore of Lake Michigan. Not sure they were receiving guests, we stepped into the tiny lobby. The glow of a television in the back room betrayed the clerk’s opportunity to ignore us, and he reluctantly took his post behind the desk without bothering to slip pants on over his tighty whities of questionable age, functionality, and cleanliness. It’s an image forever burned into our memories.

I can assure you there is no witness recollection issue with this one.

The same goes for the boating incident later in the trip.

Having finished visiting part of a crime scene accessible only by water, we screamed across a bay near Pictured Rocks in a vessel piloted by our guide. The combination of an icy jump into Lake Superior’s frigid waters to dislodge our craft from a sandbar and the words still audible in my mind of our captain’s confident utterance only moments before in response to concerns we expressed about how shallow the water looked reinforce the accuracy of my recollection: “I know these waters like the back of my hand.”

Do tell.

I don’t have an empirical answer to witness recollection. And I’ll never understand who thought that beach picture was a good idea. But I can say that photos, experiences, and the people I travel with help me remember things.

Thanks for the memories, Terry.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.