Joshua Nieman: Today you and I are going to a bridge. Not just any bridge – well, actually, yeah, just like any bridge. In fact, this might arguably be the most bland, boring and unassuming bridge in the entirety of Michigan, if not the entire world.
However, hidden behind its mask of mundanity lies an extensive history of crime, folklore and urban legend. Many of you in the area have likely heard of its bizarre tales of trolls and various other spooks and specters, but the reality of the bridge is deeply unsettling, and in most cases, very tragic. Welcome to WEMU's Hidden in Plain Sight, the show where we shed light on some of the people, places and things that help comprise who we are as a community.
Today we will be exploring Saline's Maple Road Bridge, or as it's more commonly known by its enthusiasts, the Troll Bridge.
You know, it's interesting. I first started mapping these October episodes out back in August. I was looking for local topics that were whimsical and spooky. You hear the words “Troll Bridge,” and you assume it's going to be just that, some innocent tall tale to scare, you know, scare children with. I started the episode's production with that in mind, but as I kept peeling back the layers of history, I came to the conclusion that focusing on the trolls would be greatly disrespectful, especially since I've found details of certain stories that seem widely unknown by the public.
So, let's first get the campfire stories out of the way, and minor content warning for descriptions of urban legend violence. I'm going to keep it brief. There's a narrative surrounding the bridge that a couple was once found dead outside of their car with all of their bones broken.
All of their bones. I've heard other versions where the couple was found with all of their bones ripped from their bodies entirely. The legend blamed trolls – hence the name. Ridiculous, all of it, and completely unsubstantiated.
I dug, trust me, I did, to find an origin to this story, a truth at the center of something so bizarre and I just couldn't. The earliest retelling of this story that I found online was columnist John Robinson's 2019 piece, “Murders at the Troll Bridge,” for 99.1 WFMK's Haunted Michigan series. Who knows how long it's been a word-of-mouth legend before then.
So I started digging deeper. I reached out to John Robinson. I reached out to past Saline Mayor Gretchen Driskell.
I reached out to the president of Friends of the Saline River, Jim Peters, and they were all kind enough to engage with me, but nobody could offer an answer. Even the Historical Society offered nothing new. Nobody knew.
The urban legend angle was getting old. Some friends of mine who live in Saline know about the broken bones story, but not where it came from. It just kind of seems to be something a lot of people have heard, but nobody knows from where, as urban legends often operate.
No names. No faces. No IDs. I switched gears and started looking into the real stories. Theral Carl Heldt Jr. was found shot in the upper back in 1981.
He was 39 years old. He went by Skip. His 1975 Chevy Nova was later found abandoned in Toledo.
His body was found under the Maple Road Bridge in Saline, mere feet from where I am sitting recording this now. Police believed he was killed elsewhere. To this day, the homicide has not been solved. I often wonder now why it had to be this bridge, this troll bridge, because if it was random, if it could have been any bridge, then Theral just happened to be left here under a random bridge with pre-existing myth.
And what happened? The real murder just got assimilated. It became part of the spectacle. Now the troll bridge was also the unsolved homicide bridge.
This is when I really started to think critically about urban legend as a concept. Specifically, its nasty ability to incorporate real-life tragedies as reinforcement for its bewilderment. In my exasperation in trying to find someone, anyone, who knew more about the bridge, I threw a Hail Mary and reached out to the current mayor of Saline, Brian Marl.
To my surprise, he responded immediately and very enthusiastically.
Brian Marl: Well, I'm intimately familiar with that bridge and the overall geographic location because, while I am currently the mayor of the city of Saline and have resided within the corporate limits of the city of Saline for more than 20 years now, I was born and raised in Saline Township at 9550 S. Maple Rd., which is not even a mile north of that bridge.
Joshua Nieman: I first asked him about the troll's claim to fame.
Joshua Nieman: They've heard some variation of the story but have no idea where it originated from. And it's this story, this urban legend of a couple being found dead on the bridge with all of their bones broken.
Brian Marl: Oh, that I do not recall that.
Joshua Nieman: You've not heard that? Okay, that's interesting.
Joshua Nieman: It became very apparent to me very quickly that the mayor's knowledge of the bridge's reputation was almost entirely rooted in reality.
Brian Marl: When I was young, so late '80s, early '90s, that bridge was a gathering point for, how can I say this politely without being pejorative? Some miscreants and incorrigibles would gather there late at night and probably drink and party and do some more nefarious things.
There was always beer bottles or empty vodka or whiskey bottles in and around the vicinity. There was always a fair amount of litter and debris that was either in the roadway or thrown into the river. And when I was maybe more early teens, I can remember significant graffiti in and around the bridge.
Joshua Nieman: So it's safe to say that what you primarily know about the troll bridge lies in real-life crimes or tragedies.
Brian Marl: Yeah, and not to discount the severity of drinking to excess or littering or loitering, but I mean, yes, that's obviously deeply annoying and troubling if you live in the vicinity. But 21-, 22-year-olds congregating, playing their radios loudly at night and drinking to excess is obviously problematic.
But I'm not aware of any supernatural. No, nothing supernatural, and nothing apart from the story that I recall of a gentleman overdosing, which may or may not have been related to the troll bridge. Nothing that nefarious that occurred in that vicinity.
Joshua Nieman: That gave me pause. That was a story with which I was not familiar, and I truly dug deep. I was shocked.
Brian Marl: When I was very young, the neighbors who were kitty corner from us, so they were on the east side of South Maple Road in the York Township portion, the late Robert and Louetta Dieterle, who were friends of my family, contemporaries of my grandparents.
And they attended the same church that I still attend to this day. They had an expired gentleman on their front porch who, again, if my memory serves me correctly, had expired of an overdose – of what specifically, I don't recall. I would assume it's something more substantial like a heroin, an opiate.
And the conclusion was, I don't know that there was ever any evidence to support this, but the conclusion was that maybe he was part of a group that was partying in and around the bridge or on the back roads, started to experience symptoms of being, of overdosing, and then he was dumped along the side of the road or attempted to get help by approaching the closest residential property. But either they didn't hear him knocked, or he didn't get that far, or he expired before that was possible.
Joshua Nieman: I've since looked closely into this case, and personally, I can't substantially verify it. The Dieterles were certainly real people in the area, but coverage of this horrifying story, if true, doesn't seem well-archived at all. If any listeners out there can speak more on this story, please contact me.
After that, I opened my binder and began looking over some papers I had brought. You see, what struck the biggest chord for me with the Maple Road Bridge was the story of Joseph Nelson. Joseph was a local teenager who lived about four miles away from the bridge. Little information is available these days about his personal life.
I wonder who he was, what his home life was like, what his hobbies were, and what led to him building the amateur bomb that ended up leading to his demise in 1973. He was only 18. His story has also become assimilated into the troll bridge lore.
Urban legend would have you believe that Joseph was so affected by the bridge that he built a bomb to try to destroy it, but that's not true. He built the bomb for a much more sinister purpose. As I learned more about the case, the motivations described in the urban legend just didn't sit well with me.
I dove into archived Saline articles. I found the reports of the incident, as well as the names of the individuals he involved. I reached out to the Washtenaw trial court system and requested the court documents of Bradley Hahn and Clark Trombley, two young men also involved in the plot. A couple days later, the documents were before my eyes, and this is what I read.
Jeremy Baldwin (voice actor): Criminal case number 7698 and 7700, the people of the state of Michigan versus Bradley Martin Hahn and Clark Trombley. Charged with the possession of explosives with intent to use unlawfully, conspiring to aid or abet in placing bomb with intent to destroy property and possession of a device which will explode with unlawful intent.
Bradley Hahn sentenced to two years probation under Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, to pay a $100 fine and $240 in court costs. For the record, there was a discussion about making a bomb and potential uses for the bomb. Clark Trombley made a statement to the police indicating that he had assisted Mr. Nelson in assembling the bomb and discussed placing the bomb at the police station.
Nelson discussed building a bomb and using the bomb to blow up various places. Defendant Trombley helped Joe Nelson make the bomb and had discussed placing the bomb behind the gas pumps by the police station. Defendant Hahn's motions to quash the information on both counts and Defendant Trombley's motion to quash the information on one count are therefore denied.
Joshua Nieman: It seems that Maple Road Bridge was one of many intended targets. Maybe it was simply a location picked to see if the device worked as intended. When it evidently didn't, Joe Nelson brought the bomb home to work on it, where it detonated in his garage and killed him.
It almost certainly had nothing to do with trolls or some supernatural affliction. I asked the mayor if he knew about any of this.
Brian Marl: Were the teens from this area? Did they have some sort of animus towards the police department?
Joshua Nieman: That, I don’t know.
Brian Marl: Okay.
Joshua Nieman: That, I could not find.
Brian Marl: Is it alleged or is it proven in court that their intended target was the police department?
Joshua Nieman: They said in court that there were discussions of planting the bombs where gas tanks were…
Brian Marl: Okay.
Joshua Nieman: So I don’t think that’s alleged…
Brian Marl: That it was specific to the police department?
Joshua Nieman: Yeah.
Brian Marl: Okay.
Joshua Nieman: So, I was curious if you had heard any of this bomb story with the troll bridge?
Brian Marl: No, it’s news to me.
Joshua Nieman: I tried finding them. Bradley, Clark, if they're even still alive. I did everything within my investigative power. I needed to know why.
Because without knowing why, the effect of the troll bridge became the why. The human beings became set dressing. The bridge went from the Maple Road Bridge to the troll bridge to the troll bridge with a murder victim found under it to the troll bridge so spooky that a group of troubled teens tried to blow it up.
So call the bridge what you want: A victim of insane coincidence. A magnet for extremely bad luck. A nexus for tragedy. But I'll remember it only as an inexplicable resting ground for Theral and an afterthought for Joe. I'm Joshua Nieman and this has been WEMU's Hidden in Plain Sight.
Who knows where we'll shed light next? Thanks for listening.
“Lithium” and “On the Passing of Time” by Kevin MacLeod.Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
And special thanks for WEMU's very own Jeremy Baldwin for voicing our judge.
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