Presentations

Scheduling a Presentation

Would you like to schedule a dynamic presentation for your organization? Please see menu below for available offerings. Each presentation draws material from one or more of the author’s books and articles (the relevant books are listed in parentheses at the end of each description). In addition to those listed, presentations are also available for each of the author’s books. To inquire about rates and availability, contact the author at tobin@tobinbuhk.com  NOTE:  ALL PRESENTATIONS ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FOR VIRTUAL DELIVERY. 

NEW! NEW! NEW! Return to the scene of Michigan’s most notorious crimes on this adventure in dark tourism. Using archival photographs, crime scene sketches, and documents, noted author Tobin T. Buhk will guide viewers on a journey to the most infamous spots in the Great Lake State. The itinerary includes the place of Michigan’s bloodiest school day, the site of a wild-west style necktie party, a serial poisoner’s killing field, the apartment where the Purple Gang imploded, the nook where the Ypsilanti Vampire stashed his ‘bloodletted’ victim, the cabin where a Black Widow used a shotgun to cash in on the men in her life, the third floor of an office building that hosted one of the State’s most vexing unsolved crimes, and the house where the perfect crime was committed. It’s a tour that’s sure to leave an impression!     

Meet the women who covered the pages of Michigan history with blood spatter. These felonious females include the infamous Michigan Borgia, who used strychnine to lop off an entire branch of her family tree; three sirens who lured a rich lawyer to his death; an heiress whose obsession with an earthy mechanic turned deadly; and many others. Angry wives, jilted lovers, and sociopathic serial killers all gather in this presentation that will surprise, shock, and stun even the most ardent true crime fan. (Killer Women of Michigan)

Venture back in time to an era when stagecoach and train robbers roamed the wilderness of the Upper Peninsula, when wild-west style gunfights took place on the dirt streets of long-gone dots on the Michigan map, and lumberjacks worked hard and partied harder in the saloons of northern Michigan boomtowns. Examine the case of a Black Widow whose sting was deadly to the men in her life, and take a look inside the county jails where these motley groups of malefactors slept off their drunken stupors or awaited their day in court.

Come face-to-face with the miscreants who put the “malicious” in Michigan history. Meet the jilted wife who dismembered her husband and planned a getaway with the body parts until her car broke down. Meet the disgruntled bookkeeper who murdered his boss and drove halfway across the country with the corpse. Meet the heiress who just couldn’t take rejection from her blue-collar boyfriend. Join true-crime author Tobin T. Buhk as he introduces fifteen of the boldest, bloodiest, and most bodacious criminals in the history of the Great Lake State.

He hanged twenty men, some of the wildest men in the wild west. Their ghosts paid him back by tormenting him in his sleep.  This is the true story of Amos Lunt, the “Hangman of San Quentin.”  Learn about the strange twist of fate that transformed a relatively unknown prison guard into an infamous executioner, go behind the scenes inside the prison’s death chamber, eavesdrop on a hanging, meet the hangman, and discover the shocking secret that led to his eventual demise. (American Hangman)

A family bludgeoned to death in Dowagiac. A trunk full of skulls found in an attic in Ferndale. A Detroit cult leader found with his head next to his chair. A typist left to die in a warehouse. A middle school kid who never came home. These are the cases that haunt Michigan residents. Plunge into the world of unsolved homicide. Examine the evidence, ponder the forensics, and consider the  suspects in some of the most vexing murder mysteries in Michigan history.

February 1949: RCA introduced the first 45rpm record; President Truman began his second term; the first TV soap opera debuted; and the couple who would become infamous as the “Lonely Hearts Killers” arrived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they committed a crime that would bring an end to their cross-country crime spree. Learn about the Michigan crimes of Beck and Fernandez as well as other “Cupid Club” killers who, throughout the years, preyed on Michigan lonely hearts through personal advertisements. (The Lonely Hearts Killers)   

January 1889: detectives track a savage killer who murdered a middle aged woman in her sleep. They follow a trail from the blood-spattered crime scene in Jackson to Detroit’s underworld of bordellos, revealing a shocking truth that would stun the entire community and lead to a murder trial that made national headlines. Study the crime scene, follow the clues, and ponder the motives of the “The Michigan Matricide”—a man so feared and despised, he inspired several attempts to bring the electric chair to the Great Lake State. Take a peek inside The Michigan State Penitentiary during the late nineteenth century and learn about the prison’s most infamous inmates, sadistic wardens, forms of corporal punishment, and what it really meant for a prisoner to earn his stripes. A ghost or two might even make a spectral appearance! (Pardonable Matricide)

Take a peek behind the walls of the old Detroit House of Correction, the only Michigan prison to house female inmates serving long-term sentences, and meet some of the most dangerous women in Michigan history: a serial poisoner who killed over a dozen because she wanted to don her black dress and attend the funerals; a woman who drowned her unwanted children, one by one, in a nearby river; a wife who used an ax to sever her marriage; and a con artist known as “Queen of the Underworld.” True crime author Tobin T. Buhk will introduce the audience to these and many other morbidly intriguing characters in “Michigan’s Most Dangerous Women.”   (Wicked Women of Detroit; Michigan’s Strychnine Saint)

Meet the serial killers who terrorized yesteryear Michigan:The Killer Dentist, a Grand Rapids native who tried to poison his way into his wife’s inheritance; The Detroit Bluebeard, who prowled matrimonial ads for victims; The Michigan Borgia, who removed an entire branch of her family tree with Strychnine; The Scorecard Killer, who scored two of his alleged fifty victims in Grand Rapids. The Lonely Hearts Killers, whose mail-order fraud business became felonious on the southwest side of Grand Rapids. And others. (The Shocking Story of Helmuth Schmidt; Michigan’s Strychnine Saint; Poisoning the Pecks; Skeletons in the Closet; True Crime Michigan)    

Come face to face with the malefactors who stained the pages of Michigan history with blood spatter: The Killer Dentist, a Grand Rapids native who tried to poison his way into his wife’s inheritance; The Detroit Bluebeard, who prowled matrimonial ads for victims; The Michigan Borgia, who removed an entire branch of her family tree with Strychnine; The Lonely Hearts Killers, whose mail-order fraud business became felonious on the southwest side of Grand Rapids. Andrew Kehoe, who engineered the bloodiest school day in history. Serial killers John Norman Collins and Coral Watts, whose crimes terrorized southeastern Michigan’s co-eds. And others. Join crime historian and author Tobin T. Buhk as he unveils the truth behind some of Michigan’s most fiendish crimes. (True Crime Michigan; The Shocking Story of Helmuth Schmidt; Michigan’s Strychnine Saint; Poisoning the Pecks) 

A psychopathic general who decapitated his enemies and stacked the heads in piles; an early serial killer who used the war to settle scores; an entire family murdered and thrown into the Mississippi; Soiled Doves who made money off of the war. While the boys in blue and gray traded lead on the battlefield, these malefactors terrorized soldiers and civilians alike. Learn about these characters, and many others in this look at the “un-civil” side of the Civil War.  (True Crime in the Civil War; Memphis Vice)

Ever wonder what really goes on in a county morgue? Learn how forensic professionals expose the secrets of the dead and determine cause of death along side true crime author and former morgue volunteer Tobin T. Buhk. Then examine how forensic science helped to solve some of the State’s most vexing mysteries, including the mysterious case of a body that floated across Lake Michigan and the unidentified man found incinerated in a blueberry patch. NOTE: Not for the faint of heart!  (Cause of Death; Skeletons in the Closet)