Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • 22

I'KKSS WWW.KRKKI'COM FROM THE FRONT PAGE HUNTERS I Brothers charged in slayings, 18 years later TIUICIC TRAIL TOR HUNTERS Brian Ognjan of St. Clair Shores and David Tyll of Troy were beaten to death outside a Mio tavern In 1985, according to state prosecutors. it flake 0 vKSw Ljke Michigan Huron 1 1 VrTroyVi f' INDIANA FTi swirled around the case. Brenda Ballard, the Paster-naks' daughter, disputes the State Police time line, saying Tyll and Ognjan were seen in the bar Saturday night, not Friday, and again on Sunday at about noon, the weekend they disappered. On Saturday, they were playing pool with a man named Coke be- cause he wore oversized eyeglasses, she said.

"Coke was the kind of guy you kept your eye on because he could be trouble," Ballard said. She said they also spent time talking with Dave Welch, a retired construction worker from Curran near Mio. Welch said he talked to the victims at the bar on the Saturday night. At one point the conversation took a strange turn, Welch said Thursday. "What puzzles me is that David said: 'Wouldn't it be nice to up and Welch said.

Tyll told Welch he wanted to go the Bahamas for the winter. "You'll have a better chance of disappearing if you go to Alaska," he said he told them. He said he told police of the conversation in 1985 and 1986. The men's families have never bought that theory. Neither have police.

Oscoda County Sheriff Michael Larrison said the men's pictures have hung on the walls of the 10-. officer department for 18 years. "I look at those pictures every day," said Larrison, who was a detective at the time they disappeared; "I'm personally very thankful that maybe this will give the families peace." Contact HUGH McDIARMID JR. 248-586-2611 or mcdiarmidjriSfreepivss.com. Staff writers Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki and NirajWarikoo contributed to this report.

He Mio. Location of bar where Ognjan and Tyll were drinking the night before they were last seen. West of Mio. Location of bar where the pair were allegedly murdered. AMY LfcANljUolroit f-me, HroM From Page 1A They are accused of killing Brian Ognjan, a mechanic from St.

Clair Shores, and Ognjan's chil-hood buddy, David Tyll, a machinist from Troy. The pair, then both 27, had departed metro Detroit for the Tyll family cabin near White Cloud (at least a 3-hour drive from Mio) on Nov. 22, 1985, but never returned. The Ford Bronco they were driving was never found. At Raymond Duvall's home in Monroe, a man in the driveway said he had no comment.

Later, someone at the home returned a reporter's phone call and asked that the family not be bothered. The disappearance generated massive publicity and involved dozens of police agencies in the mid-1980s. The case was haunting in a state where the hunting culture is pervasive. More than 700,000 people buy Michigan deer-hunting licenses each year. Tips in the case slowed to a trickle over the years, but new testimony from witnesses cracked the 18-year logjam earlier this year, state Attorney General Mike Cox said.

Appearing with the parents of the missing men at a Detroit news conference Thursday, Cox said the state has a solid case against the brothers, but said there may never be enough evidence to charge three other men. who are believed to have participated in the beating. He said investigators have physical evidence in addition to eyewitness accounts linking the Duvalls to the killing, but did not say what the evidence is. He declined to elaborate on motive, but said state prosecutors will provide one during the trial. In a quavering voice, Tyll's mother, Cathy Tyll, read a short statement at Thursday's news conference.

She praised police and said her son's 12 brothers and sisters will never forget him. "It's been a long time, but maybe this is the beginning of the end," she said. State Police Detective Sgt. Robert Lesneski said investigators are not releasing the names of most witnesses in the case because of threats against them. At least one is receiving police protection, he said.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox speaks Thursday about David Tyll and Brian Ognjan, hunters who disappeared 18 years ago. Brothers Raymond (Junior) Duvall and Donald (Coco) Duvall are charged. Southeast of Mio. Location where suspects are believed to have lived at he wasn't familiar with the details of the case. "My understanding is every few years this comes up and the State Police investigate the Duvall brothers and don't bring charges," he said.

"I won't know much more until I can talk to them." At Walker's Bar and Bowling Alley on Thursday, little has changed from the time Ognjan and Tyll saw it in 1985. Brown-and gray-stone siding covers the first floor exterior. Owners Paul and Bev Pasternak live upstairs. Inside the bar, it's clear the arrests will not stop the stories, rumors and speculation that has the tome. White Cloud.

Tyll family cottage, where the hunters said they were heading. Wixom. Suspects overheard in 1987 allegedly talking about the murders. Detroit Froe Preee, People close to the investigation who asked not to be identified said the Duvall brothers have been the focus of the investigation for years, but many potential witnesses feared retribution from the family that includes at least five brothers. At one time, most of the brothers lived in the Mio area, but some have moved to Monroe, police said.

A May 21 preliminary examination is scheduled before 81st District Court Judge Allen Yenior in District Court in Tawas City. According to Cox and details from information in the arrest warrant, the fatal weekend unfolded like this: Tyll and Ogjnan told their families they were headed to the Tyll's family cabin for the weekend on Friday, Nov. 22. They never reached the cabin, but instead were spotted drinking in Walker's bar in Mio that night. It's unclear where they spent the night, but they returned for breakfast at Walker's in the morning.

The next sighting was in Linker's Lounge, a bar just west of Mio, where a barmaid noticed the Duvall brothers and an unidentified man intently watching the pair play pool, according to the warrant. "The witness believed that because of the known reputation of the Duvall brothers for violent behavior, there was going to be trouble," the warrant reads. Later, the brothers and their companion were joined by two other men. Shortly before midnight, the witness told police there was a commotion outside. In the headlights of a vehicle, the witness said she saw the two brothers punching, kicking and clubbing Ognjan with a bat or metal rod "until Brian Ognjan lay unmoving on the ground." Tyll ran off but two men gave chase, caught him and beat him to death in the same manner, she said.

The men tossed the bodies in the back of the 1980 Ford Bronco the hunters had been driving and left with one driving the Bronco, according to the witness. According to the warrant, the Bronco was later seen by a girlfriend of Donald Duvall, who told police that she heard Raymond Duvall shout to a third brother, Randy Duvall: "Get rid of that (expletive) truck before you get us all in trouble!" Finally, the warrant states that in a 1987 Duvall family gathering at a bar in Wixom, two witnesses overheard the two Duvall brothers make a chilling admission: that they had dismembered the bodies and fed them to pigs, possibly pigs that authorities say the family kept on a small farm near Mio. Seymour Schwartz, an attorney hired by the Duvall family to represent the men, was driving to see them Thursday night and said Your Free Time Every Friday in Section 1 (TV i 1 if wufit (mam am Bin? Zto 3 sals ig le ig vs e-ld nt ie-ai-er In- ry. e- to ng ith mm A Selection Like No Otherl Awesome Selection! Top 20 Borders Music CDs Your DVD Headquarters I Tlx Matrix Reloaded Soundtrack Sugg. Retail: $19.98 1th he ya Ion (of ars als lis tly ida res- ec-t a Le- Madonna American Life Sugg.

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