Updated Sept. 22, 2026, 8:39 a.m. ET
A little more than two years ago, FBI agents knocked on Mike Farquhar’s apartment door in Port Huron and told him the news he’d waited a half century to hear.
The serial predator who Farquhar said repeatedly raped him, along with many other young Port Huron boys 50 years ago, was found to be living under an alias in the Netherlands, the agents told him.
Dyer Grossman was a principal figure in an international child sex-trafficking and pornography ring operating in Metro Detroit and on North Fox Island in Lake Michigan during the 1970s, according to authorities. Grossman had been on the run since 1976, having fled the country as soon as charges were filed.
In November 1976, Grossman was charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for engaging in penetration with Farquhar, who was 13 at the time. Grossman was also charged at the same time with first-degree criminal sexual conduct for engaging in penetration with a 10-year-old St. Clair County boy, who died in 1983 at the age of 18.
During their visit to his home two years ago, the FBI agents told Farquhar they planned to extradite the 85-year-old Grossman and transport him to U.S. soil. For Mike Farquhar and so many other survivors, the long-awaited justice could soon be at hand.
“I was ecstatic,” the 66-year-old grandfather remembered. “I never thought the day would actually come.”
Other survivors were equally elated. “I was so hopeful that after all these years there might finally be an opportunity for accountability,” said Bill Johnson of Port Huron. “I trusted the system was going to pursue the truth.”
But now, over two years later, that elation has devolved into mistrust as the case remains unresolved, despite glimmers of progress. Farquhar and some of his fellow survivors said they hope going public with their experiences and their frustration prompts investigators to release more information about the status of the case.
“I keep being told the same old crap that I’ve been hearing for 50 years,” Farquhar said. “I feel like survivors are being led astray. Like there is a wizard behind the curtain, and we’re just fricking puppets.”
Neither the FBI nor St. Clair County officials have commented on the investigation. On Aug. 26, Judge John D. Monaghan of St. Clair County’s 72nd District Court held a hearing on a motion filed by Ashley M. Stone, the county’s senior assistant prosecuting attorney, to seal records regarding an extradition request for Grossman.
While Stone confirmed in an email to The News that the hearing was “on an administrative matter for the file with respect to the extradition request,” beyond that, Stone said: “There was nothing new to report.”
When he first learned of the revived investigation in August 2024, Farquhar said he expected it would take months, not years. “I specifically remember asking Don McIntyre (St. Clair County Prosecutor’s Office investigator) how long he believed the process could take. He looked directly at me and said: ‘About six months.’”
Six months came and went with no news, followed by a roller coaster of highs and lows. Authorities offered hopeful statements to the victims like: “We’re almost there.” And “We have eyes on him.” But in the last year it’s been delay stacked upon delay: “We’re waiting on this; we’re waiting on that.”
More recently, the reports from law enforcement have caused Farquhar to worry that something has gone awry, with statements such as: “It’s out of my hands.” “It’s in Interpol’s hands.” “It’s up to the Dutch authorities.”
At one point, Farquhar was told Grossman was in an “assisted living” facility. Full stop. Nothing more.
Now, Farquhar said he and the other victims have reached their breaking point.
“If the government is not going to bring Grossman back, then the survivors need to know that right now,” he said. “If they are going to let him die in another country, then survivors deserve to know that, too.
“What I cannot accept anymore is silence. Not after 50 years. Not after I was asked to reopen all of this. Not after being told there was finally a chance. Not after survivors courageously came forward. We deserve the truth before we are all gone.”
Who is Dyer Grossman?
In 1973, investigators said Grossman, then a science teacher from Long Island, N.Y., teamed up with Francis Shelden, a wealthy real estate developer from Grosse Pointe, to sexually exploit children and trick the government into paying for it.
The two created child pornography operations under the guise of child care camps eligible to receive tax breaks and state subsidies. At the time, law enforcement called Shelden and Grossman “the nation’s kingpins of the child pornography racket.”
The first “camp,” established in 1974, was “Brother Paul’s Children’s Mission” on N. Fox Island, a small 835-acre private island in Lake Michigan owned by Shelden. He purchased the island in 1959 and flew young boys to the island in his private twin-engine Piper Seneca, later earning him the moniker “the first Jeffrey Epstein.”
Gerald Richards, a Port Huron school teacher who lured and groomed Michael Farquhar along with many other young boys, was listed as an administrator in the incorporation papers of “Brother Paul’s Children Mission.” In 1976, St. Clair County authorities charged Richards with first-degree criminal sexual conduct.
In a plea agreement that year, Richards exposed Grossman and Shelden’s nationwide criminal enterprise. With breakneck speed, law enforcement raided one child porn operation after another across the country. Richards, who was released after serving three years of a two-to-10-year prison sentence, died in 1996 at age 49.
On paper, the Children’s Mission purported to provide services to children with reading problems, minor emotional counseling, and physical fitness classes. Instead, boys were encouraged to run naked on the beach and coached into sex acts in cabins all while cameras rolled, according to law enforcement and court records.
Authorities have also linked Shelden and Grossman’s ring to the Oakland County Child Killer case, the unsolved abduction and murder of four children ages 10-12 from the affluent suburban county during 1976 and 1977. There is evidence that suspects in the child killings were also active in the “kingpins” child porn ring. And survivors of the N. Fox Island ring claimed they saw two of the four Oakland County children while in captivity before they were killed.
By the time prosecutors charged Shelden and Grossman in November 1976, both had vanished. Shelden reportedly died of “natural causes” in his apartment in the Netherlands in 1996 at the age of 68. The FBI said Grossman could not be located until now.
Authorities keep prolonged silence on Grossman
In a sprawling, five-decade cold case rife with conspiracy theories, corruption and cover-ups, the victims are often kept in the dark.
Another survivor of Shelden and Grossman’s ring, Mark Schuck Sr. of Port Huron, said his PTSD symptoms flare up with every news of a delay.
“Every time I meet with the FBI or the cops, it dredges up all the trauma I’ve tried to bury for 50 years,” Schuck said. “I spend my days helping people just to make myself feel better, but I rarely do. I’m 67 years old, and I still feel broken.
“We need resolution — whatever that looks like. Because right now, even though Grossman is thousands of miles away, he’s still messing with us.”
In general, law enforcement keeps investigations under wraps because sharing details could tip off the offender or influence potential witnesses in a court case. Still, these victims pointed out there is a difference between withholding detailed evidence and leaving survivors completely in the dark. As Farquhar put it: “We’re not asking for operational secrets. We’re just asking for honesty and transparency.”
A break in the case seemed imminent in July. On July 13, local journalists were told by the FBI Detroit Field Office to expect an announcement concerning a case “spanning 50 years.” The next day, that press conference was postponed to a date that is still undetermined more than two months later.
Two weeks later, a public window into the search for Grossman came out of the blue. A Reddit poster noted that he spotted a clip of FBI Director Kash Patel standing in front of a “Wanted by the FBI” poster featuring Grossman.
The clip was three seconds in an Instagram reel posted on the FBI Director’s Instagram page on July 29, a day after Patel was in Detroit to visit Michigan law enforcement officials.
The poster wrote, in part:
“This is huge info as this means fbi is taking serious look into case and on top of their priorities.”
Jordan Hall, chief spokesperson for the FBI Detroit field office, confirmed that Patel had stood in front of the Most Wanted poster showing Dyer Grossman while at the field office. He characterized it as “a graphic” that was “prepared as part of our normal planning process for potential future communications.” He would not comment further.
Michigan State Police Spl/Lt. Kim Vetter, acting commander of the Public Information Office, would only say: “I can confirm that there is still an active warrant for Grossman’s arrest from a 1976 investigation.”
The News’ calls requesting comment to Grossman’s family, including an older brother in Long Island, N.Y., and a niece in Pennsylvania, were not returned.
Victims reach breaking point and ask for clarity
By mid-September, the survivors agreed they’d waited long enough. Farquhar pointed to the plight of Barry King, the lawyer-activist father of the fourth victim of the Oakland County Child Killer. Tim King was 11 years old in 1977 when he was snatched, held captive for five days and then killed. King made it his mission in life to pursue justice for the four children. He died in November 2020 at the age of 89.
“I watched Barry King die without ever getting the full truth about what happened to his son,” Farquhar said. “I am watching people age, get sick and die while the same silence continues. My own health is not good. I do not want to spend what time I have left being strung along by vague promises.”
On Sept. 12, Farquhar sent Jennifer Runyan, the top agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, a four-page letter, requesting a supervisor review the Grossman case. He sent copies through registered mail to the White House, the FBI’s Patel, the Michigan State Police and the St. Clair County Prosecutor’s Office.
“After everything that occurred in the 1970s, survivors should not have to spend the rest of their lives wondering whether an investigation is active, stalled, abandoned, or simply sitting on someone’s desk,” Farquhar wrote.
“What I am asking for now is not confidential evidence or investigative strategy. I am asking for clarity, coordination, accountability, and a responsible point of contact.”
Staff Writer Robert Snell contributed.
