Prologue
The Hancock resident was on a couple-hour fishing trip. Getting into his pickup-truck, he drove over to Portage Lake, a waterway that cuts through the Keweenaw Peninsula, in which both ends spill into Lake Superior in Houghton County. He exited his truck, grabbing his metal rod out from the cargo bed. Walking in his squeaky waders towards the water, he casted his pole. Waiting and waiting, he was able to catch three fish before he spotted something discerning in the water, just slowly drifting by. Immediately, he called 911. The Law Enforcement quickly responded to his call, arriving on the scene just 15 minutes later. The local Coast Guard recovered the body of 20-year old Kathryn Nankervis, who suffered from Cerebral Palsy and had been reported missing from her home in L'Anse just two weeks earlier.
On a frosty winter night in Houghton, just seven months after Kathryn Nankervis's body was recovered, the Houghton PD got a frantic 911 call from a biker. The Michigan Technological University student was riding his bike back to his dorm when he discovered Jodi Watts, laying on the ground partially clad. He covered her with his jacket and called the police. When the police and ambulance arrived on scene, Jodi was still alive, but shortly after arriving at Portage View Hospital, she succumbed to her injuries.
Two deaths, just seven months apart, in the same area; neither was an accident. This story and the others are all in the same region: Upper Michigan, a region not many people know or think about. When you hear Michigan, you hear Detroit and Lansing, not the Upper Peninsula. From Pictured Rocks and Morgan Falls to snowstorms and serial killers, the UP has it all.
YOU ARE READING
Upper Michigan True Crime
Non-FictionThis is the story of a young girl traveling the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and uncovering the mysteries of the Upper Peninsula's Serial Killers, those not many know about.
