Clair Shores' police station, where he confessed to killing Housey during interrogations on October 1, 1950. He was considered missing for a few days before being located in the Canadian city of Sarnia, where his uncle resided. I love you and I've caused you too much trouble." ĭuring a search of the house, the officers found a razor stained with dried blood amongst McRae's belongings, which was seized for forensic examination. However, McRae had fled the day before, leaving behind a note addressed to his mother which read " "I want you to know I hart nothing to do with the Housey boy. McRae was unable to provide an alibi as to his whereabouts on the day of the disappearance, after which law enforcement officers showed up at his home with an offer that he undergo a polygraph test. Like most local teenagers, he was interrogated by the officers as part of procedure, but quickly became a suspect after he alleged that he "accidentally" discovered the location of a beam headlight Housey had been playing with the day he disappeared. McRae lived near the Houseys and was among the volunteers who assisted the police in the search. A forensic autopsy concluded that Housey had been sexually abused. The body had then been buried in a shallow grave with a small concrete slab, which had been washed away by rain over the following days, allowing the grave to be located. Housey's jugular vein and carotid artery, as well as blood vessels on both wrists, had been slashed with a dull paring knife, after which he had been hit on the head several times with a rock. A search operation was organized by police and local residents, who found the boy's mutilated body in a lovers' lane only two blocks away from his house on September 23. In early September 1950, 8-year-old Joseph "Joey" Housey, Jr. McRae also began to exhibit signs of an apparent sexual disorder, as he started assaulting and sexually harassing children of both sexes who were significantly younger than him. As a result, McRae was frequently disciplined by the school administration, and earned a reputation as a bully.ĭuring this period, he also stole money from his parents and other people's property such as cars and boats, and even more disturbingly, he dissected a dog near the family home. By the age of 15, he was 5'2" and weighed 90 pounds, but was unpopular in school and the neighborhood because of his aggressive and disruptive behavior towards other children and students. In 1948, McRae and a friend ran away from home, for which missing persons reports were filed, only to later be found in an auto repair shop in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where McRae had been working as a day laborer. McRae went to the Lakeview High School, where he mainly engaged in sports and was on the football team, but by this time, he also started to engage in small-time crime. Clair Shores, where the family earned a positive reputation for leading law-abiding, honest lives. There, the elder McRae found lodging in suburban St. In the early 1940s, the family left Michigan and moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where McRae attended a military school for some time, before they eventually returned to Michigan in 1946. John Rodney McRae was born on Novemin the small town of Belleville, Michigan to John Alexander and Josephine Smith McRae, who also had a younger daughter. 3 Commutation, release and suspected murders.