ROBERT STUEWE, John Hiner is taking a week off from this column. In his place, MLive investigations editor John Counts explains how a dogged reporter helped bring renewed attention to a decades-old cold case murder.
In 1986, a man disappeared in Ann Arbor. A few months later, a body was discovered on a hill in Jackson County.
For 33 years, the two cases followed separate paths.
It was not until 2019 that the body found in Jackson County was identified as Robert Stuewe, a 25-year-old who had been reported missing from Ann Arbor.
That identification was when investigative reporter Gus Burns first learned about the case.
Burns initially contacted police about the matter but was unable to make progress. He moved on to other reporting, though the unresolved case continued to stay with him.
Years later, Burns revisited the story. Despite Stuewe being identified and the death ruled a homicide caused by strangulation, the investigation had stalled.
“It was a mostly forgotten case, and police weren’t doing much to solve it,” Burns said. “Years later, I still felt like it was unresolved and was given the time to ask more questions to really explore what truly happened.”
The case was complicated by jurisdictional issues dating back to the beginning. Stuewe went missing while living in Ann Arbor, but his body was found in Norvell Township, which had its own police department at the time. When that department disbanded in 2008, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office assumed responsibility for the death investigation.
Records were lost in a flood, and for decades, the missing person case in Ann Arbor and the unidentified body investigation in Jackson County were handled separately. Even after the body was identified and the death confirmed as a homicide, the case failed to gain momentum.
Burns began contacting everyone connected to the case and submitted records requests to obtain documents tied to the investigation.
His reporting helped reenergize a case that had long gone dormant. Jackson County Detective Sgt. Bryan Huttenlocker confirmed the investigation was revived as a direct result of MLive’s inquiries.
“How it got initiated … is you reached out to our department and Ann Arbor,” Huttenlocker told Burns. “It was like, ‘Oh, I thought you guys were working on it,’ they thought we were working on it and it’s like, all right, let’s work on it together.”
When Burns resumed asking questions in mid-2025, it was clear the case had largely faded from attention amid the many demands faced daily by law enforcement.
Still, the death of Robert Stuewe remains unresolved.
For nearly four decades, the person responsible for his death has never been held accountable.
“Someone killed him, but no one knows who or why,” Burns said. “Hopefully that changes. The story contains lessons for anyone. It shows how simple, monotonous things can have a lasting impact. Had police asked a few more questions, they may have realized this was a homicide and taken the steps to solve the case a long time ago.”
