DEAHow was the suspect identified? How was the crime solved? What evidence was there? What could, or should, have been done differently?

While reading this case about the serial murders of John Norman Collins there were a couple of things going through my mind. While there was sufficient detail on how the murders were performed, I don’t believe there was sufficient information on the evidence that was available for Collins to be incriminated. The following is information on how he was identified, how the crime was solved with the evidence that was used, and what I thought could have been done differently. It is important to note the dates of the crimes as that could interfere with any potential tests that could have been done to incriminate Collins faster.
The suspect John Norman Collins was identified for various reasons. He was seen by various witnesses in the motorcycle that was identified as the transport he used for his victims, as well as the car he used. The fact the most of the murders occurred within a close proximity of each other and most had to do with East Michigan University further pointed the evidence that he was the serial murderer. Most of the murders were the same with the victims either naked or almost naked, all women, most on their menstrual cycles. Collins had had a confrontation with a woman that he had been fondling and was on her period before hand. He was disgusted and stormed off angrily. By learning the locations of the murders as well as where the victims lived and were kidnapped by the murderer, officials were able to more specifically pinpoint the location of the murderer. They just had to further link other details of the crime together.
One victim’s funeral, Mary Fleszar, Collins had shown up wanting to see the victim and take a picture (without a camera on his person) this lead the police to further suspect him. Campus police decided to investigate close friends of Collins, including his roommate, and told an official of a box that Collins had containing “a woman’s shoe, rolled-up jeans, and a handbag”. An uncle of Collins also had evidence against him, finding blood and hair clippings by his washing machine in his home that Collins had stayed at while he was on vacation. There were multiple small clues that lead to Collins being a suspect in this crime. There was a lie-detector test performed on Collins, which he had passed as well as the use of psychics.
What had lead to the verdict was the match of blood and hair to one of the victims. As well as blood found on one of his car seats. There were also other types of evidence such as one of John Collins’s boot footprints on one of the victims skirts, a bullet found in one of the victims from a revolver he had stolen, and the fact that he was treated for poison oak in California right when one of his victims, Roxie Phillips, was murdered in California (some of her hairs were found on his person). As according to the article, it is also known that burglaries are the start for most murders and high-intensity crimes. Collins had 4 motorcycles with stolen parts as well as a stolen revolver. There were a few of things that could have been done differently. For the most part, for the time period and lack of technologies from today’s advances, most things were done correctly. However, I think that there should have been more questioning, especially on the weapons used on the victims. If an officer sees something that they feel is questionable or fishy behavior, why didn’t they approach it? On the EMU campus an officer sited one of the girls being harassed by a man in a car, the officer should have approached rather than just observe. In finding evidence against Collins, a lie-detector test is not sufficient, there’s no way to actually know if someone is lying for sure. It was best to not just look for evidence against him, but I saw that there was no mention of fingerprinting of the areas of the murders, his car, the motorcycle of the victims. They just found traces of hair. Also, if he was known for beating his victims ruthlessly, couldn’t they have been able to match his fist, to their injuries? Some of the victims were also raped; they could have matched his DNA to any bodily fluid that he might have left on the victim. There are more things that could have been done; it just seems to me that no one really had a passion for this case.