FRUITLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Mere weeks after installing surveillance cameras to scare off a harasser, a blueberry farmer says they instead captured footage of suspected kidnapper and murderer Jeffrey Willis driving on the same day a teen girl says she escaped an attempted abduction.
Frank Coles, owner of Sodini Blueberries, said Willis' van passed his farm on April 16, before turning around in his driveway. Days later, detectives were at Coles' door, asking to view the footage after spotting the cameras while canvassing the area.
“I put them up to protect myself from a bonehead, instead they caught a murderer," Coles told FOX 17.
According to Coles, his cameras recorded Willis driving his silver minivan right in front of the farm—driver's window rolled down—giving cops a clear shot of his face.
“[The detective] wasn’t looking at it that long; he knew what he was looking for," Coles said. "They got a couple real nice shots of [Willis' face]."
Detectives confiscated the video footage as evidence and later returned it with the portion showing Willis missing, according to Coles.
Coles said he's unsure whether the cameras captured Willis before or after a 16-year-old girl says she escaped. The teen told police she unlocked the doors and jumped from Willis' van near W. River Road and Green Creek Road; roughly a half mile from Coles' blueberry farm.
“You know, you’ve got to give kudos to the detectives," he said. "They are the ones who were diligent and they found the cameras, because we wouldn’t have looked at them. We wouldn’t have thought of it.”
Coles said had he not looked at the footage, the system would've automatically recorded over any existing video after about a month.
Willis was arrested May 17 for the mid-April abduction attempt. The arrest would later allow the teen to identify Willis out of a photo lineup. Since his arrest, police found evidence to charge Willis with the 2014 murder of Rebekah Bletsch.
Police have also named Willis as a person-of-interest in Heeringa’s disappearance after she vanished from a Norton Shores gas station where she worked in April of 2013.
