When Michigan State Police started finding victims of a shooting rampage in northern Michigan Aug. 14, the names Chad Hickman and Lake City, Michigan started appearing in news stories across the country.
It wasn’t the first time the Hickmans of Lake City made big news for bad reasons.
Court records show that in May 1991, when Chad was 3, his father, Robert Preston Hickman Jr., was arrested and accused of kidnapping, raping and attempting to kill Chad’s mother.
The couple were estranged at the time and in the process of divorce.
Chad Hickman’s mother had been missing for more than 36 hours when she ran out of the woods west of town, sought refuge at the first home she could find and begged the man who lived there to protect her from her husband.
She would later tell police and jurors of a harrowing ordeal.
The Free Press typically does not name victims of sexual assault without their permission. Hickman's ex-wife still lives in Lake City, though her name has changed. She could not be reached for comment.
A court transcript shows she testified that on May 22, 1991, she left Chad and his younger sister with a relative so that she could work on a house on South LaChance Road that she was fixing up. Her older son from a previous relationship was at school.
Around 11:30 a.m. she had just finished some painting at the house. She paused for a cigarette in her kitchen and was cleaning out her purse when her husband appeared. His clothes were all camouflage as was the paint he’d applied to his face.
“He comes in, like quiet, and then he ran in and there he was,” she testified, according to the trial transcript. “He had a baseball bat and he was standing there and I froze and started screamin’.”
She said he grabbed her from behind and put his hand over her mouth.
Chained to a tree
“He put a cable snare over my head and around my neck and he made it real tight,” she said from the witness stand, adding he used cable to bind her hands as well.
She said he loaded her in a van in the driveway and drove wildly into the woods and eventually got stuck in the mud. He pulled her out of the van and began marching her through the woods, using a branch to cover their tracks as they went, according to the transcript.
His ex-wife testified that he punched her, raped her and chained her by the neck to a tree. She said he started digging a hole that he said would be her grave and asked if she’d ever had X-rays, which could help identify her remains, according to the transcript.
He kept her overnight in the woods and into the evening of the next day, before she said she broke free and ran to safety.
Robert Hickman was eventually caught. Prosecutors charged him assault with intent to murder, kidnapping, felony firearm and criminal sexual conduct.
Breaking news
The case drew intense media coverage in the area and beyond, especially when Hickman eluded police for almost three months after his wife reported being abducted.
A headline in The Cadillac Evening News in July 1991 read: “FBI joins search for abductor” with a secondary headline “Lake City man at large after terrorizing his wife.”
Police found Hickman in California in August 1991 and extradited him back to Michigan to face trial. His defense attorney, Thomas Trautner, argued the jury pool had been tainted by extensive coverage of the case, citing reports from two newspapers, two TV stations and nine radio stations in the area at the time.
“Mr. Hickman is labeled throughout the publicity as a man who carries rifles and knives, who should be considered dangerous and at one point he’s labeled a survivalist,” Trautner said, according to a transcript. “The issue here again is the nature of the type of this publicity which is compounded by the extensive exposure to a relatively small group of potential jurors.”
His lawyers would later describe Hickman's case as "one of the most highly publicized and sensationalized controversial prosecutions in history of Northern Michigan."
The prosecutor at the time, Charles Parsons, acknowledged the massive publicity but urged the court to try seating a juror before deciding if a new venue was needed.
Circuit Judge Charles Corwin declined to move the trial, which was eventually held in Missaukee County.
“I don’t perceive, at least at this point, any deep bitterness toward the defendant from the community or outside of the circle of the family and the friends of the family,” Corwin said, according to the transcript.
'A friendly outing'
Robert Hickman testified in his own defense. He denied abusing his wife, though he acknowledged they argued constantly.
He said he was incapable of dragging her into the woods because of injuries he suffered four years earlier when he was shot with 30.06 rifle. He said he lost a kidney and continued to have severe leg weakness as a result.
He acknowledged having sex with his wife in the woods but said it was consensual. He called their time in the woods “a friendly outing in the remote areas of Lake Township.”
In March 1992, the jury rendered a split verdict, convicting Hickman of kidnapping and first-degree criminal sexual conduct but acquitting him of assault with intent to murder and a felony firearm charge.
Judge Corwin sentenced Hickman to 25 to 40 years in prison.
Michigan Department of Corrections spokeswoman Jenni Riehle told the Free Press in an email that on June 7, 2012, Hickman was released on parole to Iowa, where he’d previously lived. He completed two years of parole there and was released in 2014, Riehle said.
A man who answered a phone this week at a home associated with him said Hickman wasn’t available.
Domestic violence
The trial brought out accusations of frequent violence in the Hickman home.
Hickman's stepson testified that Hickman abused him. Hickman's ex-wife accused Hickman of abuse and Robert Hickman testified that she was abusive to the children.
“She goes overboard a lot with Chad, she doesn’t handle him well,” Robert Hickman testified, according to the transcript. “She has problems with disciplinary actions with him.”
Hickman said he noticed the issues the year before, including once on Christmas Day when he said saw his wife kicking Chad because he wouldn’t stop crying.
“On Christmas night, I confronted (her) after she had throttled my son pretty bad…” Hickman testified, adding that once the holidays were over, he planned to divorce her.
More violence
Chad Hickman was 39 when he died and by then he'd developed a long history of violent behavior toward members of his family and beyond.
Michigan State Police say that it appears that on Aug. 14, Chad Hickman went to a home on South LaChance Road and shot and killed Shane McGowan, 45; Amanda Everitt, 40; and her son, Eric Thomas, 16. He also shot Everitt's daughter Bella Padilla Everitt, 13, who survived and is recovering in a Grand Rapids Hospital.
Investigators said that it appears that Hickman also went to a home about 2 miles away and shot John Schwartz, 53. Police later found Hickman dead in a wooded area about mile away from that home. They found Hickman's sister Heather Schwartz, 29, dead near him as well.
Court records show that in October 2016, a 31-year-old Lake City man sought a personal protection order against Hickman, saying he’d been harassing him in person and online.
“He drives up and down my road erratically, speeding, fishtailing and revving a brown pickup,” the man wrote in an application for the order. “He says racial slurs, talks about …me being raped or being homosexual. This has gone on for 5 years.”
After a hearing, a protection order was granted barring Hickman from going near the man for a year. The judge who signed it was Charles Parsons, the former prosecutor who’d won the conviction against Robert Hickman in 1992.
Court records show that in October 2019, a 64-year-old Lake City man asked for a personal protection order saying Hickman “Threatened to kill me in front of everybody. He said he was going to strangle me and he didn’t care who knew. I am in fear for my life and haven’t slept good for the past two days.”
Missaukee County Family Court Judge Melissa Ransom approved that order without a hearing. It barred Hickman from getting near or threatening the man for six months.
In January 2024, Chad Hickman was arraigned on four felony and five misdemeanor charges in Missaukee County. Prosecutors accused him of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder by strangulation. They also charged him with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of interfering with electronic communications.
The misdemeanor charges at the time were one count of domestic violence, three counts of fourth-degree child abuse and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
In August 2024, Hickman pleaded guilty to one count of fourth-degree child abuse and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. All other charges were dismissed, according to online court records.
Prosecutor David DenHouten declined to discuss the case, but issued a statement explaining the deal.
"Unfortunately … this office became aware of prior testimony in family court that the ex-spouse had given, under oath, denying that an assault had taken place," DenHouten wrote. "In light of the fact that the alleged victim’s credibility had been severely damaged, and because the truthfulness of her proposed testimony was in question, and without other corroborating evidence to support the assault, the Missaukee County Prosecutor’s office entered into a plea agreement involving the remaining child abuse counts."
Hickman was sentenced to a year in the county jail. He served about 10 months, with credit for good time, Sheriff Wilbur Yancer said.
'An evil man'
As his release date was approaching, his ex-wife sought a personal protection order saying she feared for her life once he was released. Ransom denied the order, saying a hearing was necessary.
Katie Hickman blasted the decision, blaming Missaukee County for enabling her ex-husband's shooting rampage.
As his release from jail approached, Katie Hickman also filed a personal protector order against Chad Hickman on behalf of her 17-year-old daughter.
“He was never a father to me as I can remember,” the girl wrote. “He was mean to me. I was never as good as his own children.”
The girl said he would hit her and make her stand in a corner for hours.
“Chad is an evil man,” she wrote.
Ransom denied that order, saying a hearing would be necessary. Katie Hickman dropped the request.
“I no longer want to go through Ransom,” she wrote.
After the shootings, Missaukee County Sheriff Wilbur Yancer said investigators began reviewing their contacts with him.
“I want to say there was close to 70 complaints that we've written that he was either a witness, a complainant, or a suspect,” Yancer told the Free Press. “I mean, he’s had a whole lot of contact with law enforcement.”
John McGehee, 43, knew Hickman socially and lived in the same neighborhood for a time.
He said Hickman was clearly intelligent and appeared normal at times, but over the years he changed. He would spend hours outside his home the neighborhood shooting guns. He'd fire dozens of shots at a time, in the middle of the day, for no apparent reason, McGehee said.
“To make a long story short, he was really unhinged and should not have been out on the street,” he said.
Contact John Wisely: jwisely@freepress.com. On X: @jwisely
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Up North shooting suspect's father was convicted of sensational crime
