North Fox Island

North Fox Island is a small island approximately three miles in length and one mile wide, located in Lake Michigan roughly seventeen miles off Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula and about fifty miles north of Traverse City. It belongs administratively to Leelanau County, Michigan.¹

Shelden's Acquisition and Development

Francis Shelden, born in 1928 into a prominent Michigan family and descended from one-time Governor and Secretary of War Russell A. Alger, purchased the island in 1960. Shelden, who held a Yale degree, sat on the boards of institutions including the Cranbrook Institute, and volunteered with Big Brother programs. He installed a landing strip on the island to permit access by small aircraft, the primary practical means of reaching the site.¹

Brother Paul's Children's Mission

On June 18, 1975, Shelden's associates incorporated Brother Paul's Children's Mission as a non-profit entity advertising itself as providing services to children with reading problems and emotional counseling. The organization served as the front structure for a child pornography and sexual abuse operation. During sessions on the island, boys were filmed in sexual acts with each other and with adults, and were at times prostituted to paying customers of the network. The operation circulated advertising through newsletters including Better Life Monthly and Hermes.²

One of Shelden's principal associates was Gerald Richards, a Catholic school gym teacher and traveling magician who recruited boys through performances and Big Brother programs. Dyer Grossman, a science teacher, co-drafted the Mission's charter. Adam Starchild incorporated the organization.²

Discovery and Aftermath

In July 1976, law enforcement investigators discovered the child pornography ring operating from the island. Richards was arrested, convicted of molestation charges in 1976, and entered a plea arrangement under which he testified in 1977 before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, disclosing the full scope of the North Fox Island operation.¹

Shelden fled Michigan in late 1976, taking up residence in the Netherlands, which at the time lacked an extradition treaty covering child sex offenses. He obtained Dutch citizenship, which precluded extradition. He died in Amsterdam on July 9, 1996.²

Oakland County Child Killer Connection

Investigators examining the Oakland County Child Killer case subsequently identified connections between the North Fox Island network and suspects in those murders. Richard Lawson made statements in 1988 and 2005 linking Shelden's network to film production associated with the killing of Timothy King, one of the OCCK victims. North Fox Island and its associated network remained a subject of investigative interest in Michigan law enforcement's continuing OCCK inquiries into the 2020s.³

In February 2026, the FBI announced a new excavation and investigative operation at North Fox Island.³