By April Lehmbeck
C & G Staff Writer

EASTPOINTE — A cold case is closed as far as putting the criminal behind bars, but there’s something more the victim’s family needs so they might find a little peace after more than 20 years of heartache.

Police want recently convicted murderer Arthur Ream to tell them where he hid the body of 13-year-old Cindy Zarzycki after he killed her in 1986.

“We’re hoping his conscience will get the best of him,” Detective Lt. Leo Borowsky said. “I’m sure that wouldn’t hurt him at sentencing time to give out that information.”

Ream was convicted by jury in Macomb County Circuit Court June 18.

“That was a great job,” Eastpointe Police Inspector John Calabrese said of the police work that went into solving a decades-old case, adding that Ream was convicted of first-degree murder. “We couldn’t have hoped for more than that.

“We made sure that we had a good case before we took it to the prosecutor,” Calabrese said, adding that with only two hours of deliberation, it shows that “the jury agreed.”

Zarzycki was last seen at the Dairy Queen on Nine Mile and she knew Ream prior to her disappearance. Ream was the father of a friend of Zarzycki’s. Police discovered evidence that Ream picked her up at the Dairy Queen to take her to a surprise party for his son, but there wasn’t ever a surprise party planned.

Solving an older case isn’t an easy feat and fingers point to Detective Derek McLaughlin for his work on the case and relentlessness in seeing it solved.

“There were so many small pieces (making it) like putting a puzzle together,” Borowsky said. “They put that puzzle together very well.”

After years as a cold case, new information was uncovered and police discovered that Ream kept a keepsake of a missing person flier that was more than 20 years old, which led them to believe that he was saving it as a sort of trophy.

Borowsky said that McLaughlin handled his regular case load from day to day while tackling clues that would come in on the case.

Then, another major piece that fell into place in making this conviction come about was the work of Steven Kaplan, Macomb County cold case prosecutor.

“He said, ‘This is definitely a case I would take to trial,’” Borowsky said. 

The pieces coming together happened just in time to keep Ream off the streets because he was set to be released from prison late last year in Muskegon after serving several years for a sentence for third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a child in a case from 1996. He also was convicted of indecent liberties with a child during the 1970s.

“He’d be walking the streets right now,” Borowsky said, adding that people like Ream don’t stop hurting others. “This guy would have been preying on someone. We know it.”

You can reach Staff Writer April Lehmbeck at alehmbeck@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1043.