Shelley Speet Mills was murdered Sept 15, 1970. The story of her unsolved homicide was told in a film that needs to be closed captioned
Vesta Speet had driven from Holland, MI, to Grand Rapids on the late morning of September 15, 1970, to have lunch with her newly married daughter, 19-year-old Shelley Speet Mills. In the car was her (Vesta’s) blind father, who was going to spend the afternoon with Shelley when Vesta went to visit her mother. He waited as Vesta went up to the apartment in a house at 314 College N.E. She thought it odd that Shelley had not come out to meet her when she honked the car’s horn, something the friendly young woman normally would have done. But things weren’t normal. Inside the apartment, Mrs. Speet found murder–bloody murder. The scene stunned her as she fumbled to dial for the police. And after reaching the police, she dialed to reach Shelley’s husband of less than three weeks, Lowell (MI) band teacher Bill Mills. Grand Rapids Police have been working the case ever since.
Beginning in 2006, filmmaker David Schock began interviewing participants in the investigation. This interviews continued until the summer of 2016, a full ten years. In the fall of 2016, just the day before the 46th anniversary of Shelley’s murder, Schock presented the premier of the 79-minute film Heritage Hill Bride: The Murder of Shelley Speet Mills at the Wealthy Street Theatre in Grand Rapids.
WGVU-TV has offered to carry the film in its entirety, but in order to do that the film must be closed captioned. The entails generating a transcript that’s word for word and the technology of reading is the closed captioned file. I estimate the cost will be $2,000.
There are few risks. The film is already complete. The closed captioning will it allow it to spread much further than theatrical releases and film festivals.