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New details come in missing hunters case

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

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Terry Camp
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OSCODA (WJRT) -- (09/16/09)--Wednesday brought new developments in the case of two deer hunters who vanished in 1985.

Two men from the Detroit area were last seen around Mio in Oscoda County. In 2003, two brothers were convicted of killing the men and were sentenced to life in prison.

No physical evidence was found. Now investigators have new information and have resumed a search for that physical evidence.

This new information comes from someone who knows the convicted men, but was afraid of retaliation.

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"We believe this tip has credibility," said East Tawas Michigan State Police Lt. Robert Lesneski.

That's why the Michigan State Police helicopter was flying over a remote area in Oscoda County.

"We are looking for irregularities in the terrain or the vegetation," said Lt. John Kenny with the MSP in Lansing.

The area in question is where an informant says there is some type of evidence in the case of the murdered hunters, David Tyll and Brian Ognjan.

Their bodies were never found, but testimony in the 2003 trial of brothers Raymond and Donald Duvall indicated the two bragged of killing the hunters, chopping up the bodies and feeding the remains to pigs.

"It was never our story that they were cut up and fed to the pigs," Lesneski said. "It was what the Duvalls said. That's what their friends said. That's what family members were threatened with."

The State Police will use an infrared camera to search the remote area.

"(We're using) the heat sensor to look for any disturbed earth or where something might be buried," Kenny said.

"It could be vehicle parts. It could be weapons. Their weapons were never found. It could potentially be the bodies," Lesneski said.

The land is near where the Duvall brothers lived, and a few locations, like a few small lakes, were targeted for future searches.

Since the 2003 trial, Tyll's parents have passed away, and so has Ojnan's mother, as has Barb Boudro, the woman who testified she saw the hunters beaten to death.

And even though two men sit in prison for the crime, Lesneski wants more answers.

"I owe it to the people of this state," he said. "Just because they have been convicted and put into prison doesn't mean we are just going to walk away. I can't do it."