A Michigan man gave a deathbed confession, admitting to killing almost a dozen women right before he died of lung cancer.
Detectives are working to see if any of the victims were among 17 women mysteriously killed in Grand Rapids almost 30 years ago.
From a prison hospital in Jackson, Michigan, while struggling to breathe, Garry Artman reached out to detectives and provided details on the 11 murders he said he committed. Among them were the 1996 killing of Sharon Hammack, for which he was convicted, nine other Grand Rapids women, and the slaying of Dusty Shuck, a New Mexico native who was killed on the East Coast.
The 24-year-old Shuck was found beaten and stabbed to death near a truck stop off I-70 in Maryland on May 4, 2006.
DNA evidence connected him to the case.
Artman, who worked as a long-haul trucker, was believed before his confession to have killed Shuck, but due to his terminal cancer prognosis, a prolonged trial was deemed impractical.
Shuck’s mother, Lori Kreutzer, stated Artman was in a coma, on a respirator, and expected to die in mid-December. However, before he died, he woke up and confessed.
“He came out of the coma after the respirator came out and fully confessed to Dusty’s murder,” Kreutzer said, according to WOODTV. “It was a miracle. … divine intervention. So at least he did that.”
Adding, “(He) died the 28th at the hospital, and Dusty’s birthday was the 29th. So, she would have been 42.”
The convicted murderer was 66 when he died.
He was convicted of killing Hammack in September 2023. A Kent County jury took only 30 minutes to come up with a guilty verdict.
Hammack’s pregnant body was found bound, raped, strangled, stabbed, and wrapped in a blanket near a Grand Rapids road on Oct. 3, 1996. The 29-year-old was expecting her third child.
Even though there was DNA evidence, the murder remained unsolved. However, Kent County, Michigan, detectives got a break once forensic…
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