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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/TheBonesOfAutumn on 2024-01-04 16:08:48+00:00.
Garry Altman, a 66-year-old man recently convicted of murder in a 1996 cold case, has died, but not before delivering a disturbing death bed confession to police.
Investigators identified Artman, who was a commercial trucker for 20-plus years, as a suspect in the 1996 stabbing/strangulation death of 30-year-old Sharon Hammock in August 2022 through DNA and genetic genealogy. Sharon, a sex worker, was found bound and wrapped in a blanket on the side of the road Oct. 3, 1996, near 76th Street and Kraft Avenue in Caledonia Township, Michigan. She was pregnant when she died.
Artman went to trial in September 2022 and was convicted of her murder on September 28, 2022. He was sentenced in October to life in prison without parole.
After a cancer diagnosis in June 2023, Artman fell unconscious and went into a coma. He was expected to die in mid December 2023, however, in an expected twist, Artman recently woke from the coma. and in a death bed confession, admitted to the murders of 11 women, many of them sex workers, who went missing or were found dead in metro Grand Rapids between 1993 and 1996. He also confessed to the murders of Sharon Hammack in 1996, the only killing of which Artman was ever actually convicted, and the murder of 24-year-old Dusty Shuck.
Dusty was found beaten and stabbed to death near a truck stop off I-70 in Maryland on May 4, 2006. DNA recently linked Artman to the case, though his terminal cancer prognosis made a trial a long shot.
His confession also included Cathleen Dennis, who was last seen in Grand Rapids in 1995.
From Charley Project:
“Cathleen Dennis was last seen in Grand Rapids, Michigan on July 10, 1995. She and her sister, both of them sex workers, had traveled there from Omaha, Nebraska a few days earlier and gotten a hotel room. That night they had a few drinks at a nightclub, then parted ways to find clients.
Dennis's sister saw her once during the night, getting into a light-colored Chevrolet, possibly a 1965-1968 model, at Division Avenue and Putnam Street Southwest. At 4:00 a.m., when she was ready to quit work, she could not find Dennis. She has never been heard from again.
There's a theory that Dennis's disappearance is related to the disappearances and murders of other women who were involved in the local commercial sex industry in 1995. No links have been established between the cases, however. Dennis's case remains unsolved.”
This is an ongoing story. I will update as more information becomes available.
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