Patrick Sullivan | Author

Jan. 25, 2020

The trial of Robert Jensen Schwander for the brutal murder of Carly Lewis in June 2011 was not about whether or not Schwander killed Lewis — he confessed to killing her early in the investigation. Rather, the trial was supposed to determine what kind of killing had occurred.

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Was it Racism?

Jan. 11, 2020

It was on a warm, sunny summer evening when the 13-year-old Cadillac student bought some cookies at one of the city’s Dollar Generals before heading home on his bicycle via a section of the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail, a 92-mile trail that runs from the southeast end of Cadillac&rsqu… Read More >>

Iron Fish's Copper Queen

Jan. 11, 2020

A Benzie County distillery is offering a taste of Michigan’s Copper Country in a whiskey that’s based on a century-old recipe.

Copper Queen, originally served in the saloons of Red Jacket — now Calumet —  when the copper mining industry made the Kewee… Read More >>

Mirror of History

Jan. 4, 2020

If you drive by the old white house on Mission Road in the village of Old Mission, on the Old Mission Peninsula, there isn’t anything about it that jumps out at you to reveal what a significant building it is. There is a historical marker, but other than that, it looks like another ol… Read More >>

Committed in 2012. Solved in 2019.

Dec. 14, 2019

When a man passed a note through a Walgreens drive-thru saying that he’d rigged the store with a bomb and needed all the morphine and Ritalin the Grand Traverse store had, an alert pharmacy clerk and quick action by detectives soon led to all the evidence needed to identify a suspect … Read More >>

Kalkaska: Marijuana Mecca

Dec. 7, 2019

For weeks, in a shopping plaza near the southern limits of the village of Kalkaska, workers have been busy transforming a former Forest Area Federal Credit Union branch into a marijuana store.

The Village of Kalkaska wants to be a mecca for marijuana, and as recreational marijuan… Read More >>

Welcome to the Golden Age of Shipwreck Hunting

Nov. 30, 2019

The era of shipwrecks on the Great Lakes ended in 1975 with the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, according to Michigan historian and shipwreck hunter Ross Richardson. Improved weather forecasting and larger vessels have meant there haven’t been many significant wrecks since then.
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A Decade on the Front Lines of the Opiate Epidemic

Nov. 23, 2019

Christopher Hindbaugh didn’t know what he was getting into when he took over as executive director of Addiction Treatment Services in 2009. The Traverse City-based nonprofit — which had been providing substance abuse services to the community for 30 years — was in deep fin… Read More >>

We’ve Been Here Before

Nov. 16, 2019

People were caught off guard when Lake Michigan reached record highs in 1986, the last time lake levels were near the level they are today. That year, like this year, the lake crept onto highways, washed away beaches and trees, and tumbled homes from bluffs into the unpredictable inland sea… Read More >>

Double Life

Nov. 9, 2019

Warning: Details in the following story might be disturbing to some readers.

There was talk among a small group of inmates at the Grand Traverse County jail, talk of a monster who lived in town, one who would lure young men to his office after dark, offer them meth, and … Read More >>

Time to Decide

Oct. 26, 2019

It may be an off-year election, but contested mayoral elections in the region’s two largest cities are heating up. Elsewhere, voters will be asked to weigh in on whether to fund schools and how public money should be spent. Northern Express zeroed in on some of the most significant ba… Read More >>

Inside American Waste

Oct. 19, 2019

A failed 2012 experiment bore the nearly 50-year-old waste hauler — and environmentally conscious northerners — some unexpected fruit: a series of massive machines that can take in and tackle more recyclable materials than most any system in the nation. Northern Express foll… Read More >>

Saving Our Sacred Earth