Lois Janish

FLINT, MI -- A detective investigating the 1998 disappearance of a 14-year-old Flint girl told a Flint judge this week that the girl's grandmother said she killed the girl with a hammer then dismembered her body before scattering her remains.

Lois Arlene Janish, 73, was arraigned Thursday, Aug. 1, in Flint District Court on a single charge of open murder after authorities say she killed Coral P. Hall in 1998. Janish was ordered held without bond by Flint District Judge Nathaniel Perry III.

Hall was 14 years old when she went missing Sept. 22, 1998. Her body has never been found. Her last known location in the Flint area was a call from a pay phone near the White Horse Tavern to a friend in the Thumb area about a fight she and Janish had.

Prosecutors and law enforcement officials have stayed mum on why they suspect Janish is responsible for Hall's disappearance, but a Wednesday, July 31, Flint District Court video recording of Flint police Sgt. Greg Hosmer obtaining an arrest warrant for Janish reviewed by Mlive-Flint Journal details a possibly brutal death for Hall.

In the video, Hosmer told Perry that Janish admitted killing her granddaughter by hitting her in the head with a hammer, but said she eventually changed or recanted her story multiple times.

Hosmer told Perry that Janish obtained custody of Hall in 1987.

Court records show Janish raised her granddaughter after a Genesee County Probate judge found Hall's mother, Sharon A. Jones, unable to care for her daughter. Jones died of a drug overdose on Dec. 23, 1996 -- two years before Hall disappeared.

Hosmer told the judge that five protective services investigations were conducted into Janish's treatment of Hall, including accusations of medical and physical neglect and substance abuse by Janish. Janish allegedly told authorities that she used crack cocaine, Hosmer said.

The detective also said sexual abuse allegations were made by Hall against the grandmother's boyfriend, who was released from prison just prior to Hall's disappearance, and the boyfriend responded by allegedly stating he would not return to prison because of Hall's complaints.

Janish's 46-year-old boyfriend died Feb. 7, 2000, from complications of alcoholism, according to Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton.

Court records show he was convicted in 1991 on a breaking and entering charge and sentenced to probation before eventually spending a year in jail on a probation violation. He was sentenced to 2-30 years in prison on a drug charge in 1995.

Hall met with protective services on Sept. 21, 1998, and returned to Janish's Ann Arbor Street home. She disappeared the next day.

"I was told by my grandmother that she ran away and would be back," said Hall's sister, Jacinda Sturtevant.

Sturtevant said news that her grandmother is charged with murder is the "greatest thing she ever heard."

"It's been hard not having her around," said Sturtevant, 27. "My grandmother took that from me."

Hosmer told Perry that a missing child complaint was filed Sept. 24, 1998, with Flint police but was closed at an unknown later date after authorities were told Hall returned. But Hosmer said there was no evidence of her return.

Friends and family began posting signs around the city trying to find Hall, but Hosmer told the judge that Janish was seen tearing them down.

Janish told varying, different accounts of what happened to Hall, according to Hosmer's testimony. One version of her story involved Hall moving down South to live while another involved Hall fleeing to California with an older man. Janish allegedly even said that Hall was found raped and stabbed to death in California.

Sturtevant said Janish was tight-lipped about Hall's disappearance around family.

"She didn't want to give anyone information," Sturtevant said.

Hall's disappearance was turned over to Hosmer and the Violent Crime Task Force in 2008.

Hosmer said Janish went through polygraph examinations administered by the Genesee County Sheriff's Department in July 2011 and August 2012, in which Janish allegedly admitted to smoking crack cocaine and that Hall was dead.

Janish allegedly wrote a letter apologizing for dumping Hall's body and agreed to help authorities search for Hall's remains, according to Hosmer's testimony. Three searches were conducted but no remains were found.

Leyton said the searches were conducted around the Ann Arbor Street home Janish lived in at the time of Hall's disappearance. Police obtained a search warrant to try and find the letter Janish allegedly wrote but were unsuccessful, Hosmer told the judge.

Hosmer said Janish admitted that she and her boyfriend dismembered Hall and that she visited her granddaughter's grave three to four times. However, Hosmer told Perry that Janish recanted her story after hiring an attorney and told investigators that she made up the stories.

Shortly thereafter, Hosmer testified, Janish was arrested on two misdemeanor warrants and lodged in the Genesee County Jail for four days.

Hosmer told the judge he interviewed three women who were lodged at the jail at the same time as Janish. The women described Janish as "scary" and allegedly told Hosmer that Janish giggled as she told them she killed Hall by hitting her in the head with a hammer and scattered her remains.

"All of (the grandmother's) statements over the years have been inconsistent," Hosmer said following Janish's arrest. "Trying to sort them out just didn't make any sense. We just followed up on all of that."

Sturtevant said she hopes her grandmother's trial will reveal the true story of what happened to her sister.

"I miss her," Sturtevant said of Hall. "I miss her smile. I miss the fight over boys."

Janish could face life in prison without parole if convicted.