Posted Confession Brings Arrest in 1986 Slaying

A convicted felon confessed repeatedly in the late 1980s to killing a woman in Michigan. Nothing happened. "People thought he was trying to get attention," the lead police investigator tells WOOD. But last June, Michael Leon Curry confessed again, on Facebook. "If I get pissed I kill," he posted. "I have never killed anyone who did not—who didn't deserve it." Readers of the post included the Michigan State Police. Curry, 51, was arrested in California, where he was living, and charged Monday in Michigan with strangling Wilda Wilkinson, a 59-year-old nurse's aide, in her home in Bangor in 1986.

Curry reportedly had confessed at least four times, by the Washington Post's count: to a cellmate, while he was jailed on a separate robbery charge; in interviews with investigators; and in a letter to police. Curry was never ruled out as a suspect at the time—he lived near the victim and was questioned—but was never charged. There was no physical evidence to support the confessions. State police now say that he planned a burglary at the house but was surprised when Wilkinson answered the door. Curry says he pushed her inside and strangled her. Wilkinson's daughters pushed to have the case reopened in 2010. Police exhumed the body for tests and began monitoring Curry's Facebook account. After his post last summer, they got an arrest warrant. (More cold cases stories.)