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Park Predators

The Isle

Park Predators

audiochuck

True Crime

4.415.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On October 1, 1988 two people entered Presque Isle Park and only one came out alive. The question of who killed Paul Girard on a sacred Native American chief's grave may soon be answered. The key to solve the 33-year-old cold case may be buried in Lake Superior or it might be with scientists in Michigan.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi Park enthusiasts, I'm your host, Dilya DeAmbra, and the case I'm going to share with you today comes all the way from Preskile Park in the town of Marquette, Michigan.

0:11.0

This park is in the far north part of the state that shares its border with Wisconsin.

0:16.0

Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, almost entirely surrounds Preskile Park.

0:23.0

The only way in or out by land is to pass what's known as Upper Harbor. It's a marina near the entrance of the park where for hundreds of years freighters and huge ships carrying iron ore have docked.

0:36.0

If you walk about 200 yards from Upper Harbor into the park, the landscape climbs steadily upward but then levels out.

0:44.0

The first clearing you come to is the site of a grave marker for a well-known Native American chief, chief Charlie Cobbagan.

0:52.0

And just like the indigenous chief's life is memorialized there, so too is the soul of 34-year-old Paul Gerard, who is stabbed to death while on a walk in the park and left at the foot of the chief's grave.

1:07.0

This is Park Predators.

1:14.0

At 10 a.m. on Friday, September 30, 1988, the Grunstrums, a husband and wife from Marquette, Michigan, were on their usual walk.

1:29.0

At 10 a.m. on Friday, September 30, 1988, the Grunstrums, a husband and wife from Marquette, Michigan, were on their usual morning walk in Preskile Park when they stumbled upon the body of a man lying in a pool of blood.

1:44.0

They found the gruesome scene literally only minutes after getting out of their car and starting their walk.

1:50.0

The couple was horrified by what they saw, but were talking 1988 here so it's not that they could just pick up their cell phones and dial 911.

1:59.0

The best thing they could do was make note of the location of the body, which was sprawled out in front of a grave memorial for a Native American chief. Then they beeline for help.

2:10.0

The first person they ran into was a man dressed in a Marquette City Park's employee uniform and they told him what they'd found. The park employee was equally as surprised because he was working that morning a few hundred yards away from where the bloody body was.

2:25.0

He'd been picking up leaves and trash inside of the park when the Grunstrums ran into him.

2:30.0

The panicked couple asked him to call 911 and he quickly went over to a nearby office phone and dialed the police.

2:37.0

Detectives from Marquette City Police Department were dispatched to the scene right away and they arrived within a few minutes.

2:44.0

Based on identification found on the body, detectives discovered the victim was 34-year-old Marquette Native Paul Gerard.

2:52.0

It was clear from just looking at his body that Paul had been stabbed all over his body, possibly as many as two dozen times.

3:01.0

And right away, the detectives believed that the crime looked like it was overkill. It seemed extremely rage-driven.

3:08.0

The evidence at the crime scene, most notably the position of Paul's body, strongly indicated that his attack occurred right-wave fell.

3:17.0

So it wasn't like he was killed elsewhere and dumped there kind of thing, or that he'd been stabbed somewhere else in the park and then run to that spot and died.

...

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