Evart, MI: Teen's fears come true with murder-suicide

Teen's fears come true with murder-suicide

By MATT HELMS and ELISHA ANDERSON
Free Press Staff Writers

Taylor Manley, 15, spoke with her dad before he took off for work Tuesday night about her big day Wednesday.

She was supposed to be out of bed when he got home from an overnight shift and ready to go to court to testify. The teen planned to miss school that day to be the main witness against Raymond Bush, 38, who faced a charge of third-degree criminal sexual conduct for a relationship with her.

When Robert Manley arrived at his Evart home in Osceola County around 7:30 a.m., his daughter was gone. He knew something was wrong and immediately called authorities, prompting an Amber Alert to be issued for the teen.

Taylor and Bush were found dead in the back of Bush's blue Dodge Caravan parked in a Monroe County cemetery. She had been shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest, and Bush died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an apparent murder-suicide, police said.

"She was afraid of him," Robert Manley said of Bush, who had Taylor's name tattooed near his lower neck. Taylor told her dad that Bush had threatened in the past that he would "do something" if she planned to testify.

A desperate man, a fearful teen

Raymond Bush's troubles were closing in on him.

Unemployed, broke and about to lose his apartment, the 38-year-old Newport man faced an even more serious matter: a sex-assault charge that relatives said spooked him. He had been involved intimately with 15-year-old Taylor Manley, a northern Michigan girl whose mother notified authorities when she learned about the sexual relationship that, if true, is statutory rape.

"He didn't know what he was going to do next," his stepmother, Maryann Bush, said Thursday. "He was just afraid of when he had to go to court, what would happen to him, because he's never been in a situation like that."

Bush threatened Taylor about testifying and told her that he would rather run than face the charge, the girl's father said.

Now police are investigating whether Bush snatched Taylor out of her father's Osceola County home sometime early Wednesday and drove downstate, shooting her to death before turning a .22-caliber pistol on himself.

Glimpses into Bush's growing desperation emerged Thursday as police investigated the discovery of their bodies the day before in the St. Charles Cemetery on Dixie Highway in Newport in Monroe County. Michigan State Police said the bodies were in the back of a minivan parked near the graves of Bush's grandparents, who raised him.

Taylor was shot in the head and chest and Bush once in the head, police said. The Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office ruled Taylor's death a homicide and Bush's a suicide.

Police still were examining details of the shootings.

Taylor's grandfather, Joseph Manley of Farwell, said investigators told the family that there were signs a door to the mobile home where she lived with her father in Evart had been pried open, indicating she was abducted, and that several hours may have elapsed between her death and Bush's suicide.

Both Taylor and Bush were supposed to appear Wednesday in 80th District Court in Harrison -- Bush to face a third-degree criminal sexual conduct charge and Taylor to be the main witness against him, Clare County Prosecutor Michelle Ambrozaitis said.

After Taylor's father came home and discovered she was gone, and with fears Bush might try to prevent her from testifying, police issued an Amber Alert on Wednesday that ended with police discovering their bodies 200 miles south in Newport, said Michigan State Police Sgt. Joe Cairnduff.

Bush's worries had worsened as his day in court neared. He had fired an urgent barrage of text messages to Taylor in recent days, though they contained "nothing threatening," Ambrozaitis said. "It was mostly 'I love you.' 'Call me.' 'Text me.'"

That violated terms of his bond, which ordered Bush not to have contact with the girl. Ambrozaitis said she had planned to request higher bond for Bush and asked the Osceola County prosecutor to seek aggravated stalking charges against him.

Instead, Ambrozaitis said she got a call from Taylor's father around 8 a.m. Wednesday, saying she was missing.

"I met with the young woman the day before she disappeared," Ambrozaitis said. "It's devastating. I was absolutely sick when I got the call."

Taylor moved in with her father, Robert Manley, about two weeks ago because of the sexual-assault case. It was time for her to be a kid again, and her dad was "trying to take her away, trying to hide her, so this kind of thing wouldn't happen," he told the Free Press.

Manley said he doesn't think his daughter left willingly with Bush, and didn't seem to have a problem with testifying against the man who police said had her name tattooed on the back of his neck.

Ambrozaitis said Bush was a family friend of the girl and her mother when they lived in the Monroe area.

"At some point after they moved up here, the relationship turned sexual and the mom reported it to police" when she learned about it, Ambrozaitis said.

Michigan's age of consent for sexual relations is 16.

"There is no consent in this," Ambrozaitis said. "She's not of an age where she can give consent."

Maryann Bush said her stepson was an unemployed laborer. She said bills and debt were piling up, he couldn't afford rent for his apartment and he was about to move out. The father of two -- a boy and a girl in their teens -- was giving his belongings to friends and relatives for safekeeping.

The third-degree criminal sexual conduct charge filed against him Aug. 22 could have led to 15 years in prison.

"When we found out about it, we asked him, 'Ray, what were you thinking?'" Maryann Bush said. "And all he would say is, 'You just don't understand.' I think he was a lost soul looking for someone to love him."

Although Robert Manley said his daughter was scared of Bush, Ambrozaitis said Taylor never told her as much.

"She just reiterated she didn't want to have anything to do with him -- she didn't want to see him," Ambrozaitis said. "But I do understand she told family she was afraid of him."

Ambrozaitis said Bush's record appeared clean enough for bond as low as $50,000, cash or surety, and authorities didn't believe he posed a threat to Taylor.