Warren Mayor Jim Fouts Criticized By Royal Oak Officials

ROYAL OAK, MI — Jim Fouts is at it again, and Royal Oak officials are not too happy about it. The controversial Warren Mayor recently speculated that the death of a 72-year-old Royal Oak woman in a March 11 house fire on South Minerva Street was actually a murder.

“I’m hopeful that a person that killed an elderly woman last week will be charged with her murder,” Fouts wrote in a Facebook post that has since been removed. “This was a clear gypsy crime that was covered up by setting her house on fire in Royal Oak last week. A very tragic situation for a lonely woman.”

In January, Fouts was heavily criticized after audio tapes were released in which he was alleged to make a series of racially offensive remarks. Fouts denied making the remarks, however, and the tapes have not been authenticated. Many groups, including the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, called for Fouts to resign.

The house fire claimed the life of Royal Oak attorney Marsha Baliff. Her body was found in a hallway after a fire destroyed most of her house early in the early morning hours of March 11, the Royal Oak Daily Tribune reported. The cause of Baliff’s death and the fire are still under investigation.

“We have no indication at this point it was a homicide,” Royal Police Chief Corrigan O’Donohue recently told the Daily Tribune. “But the investigation is ongoing and we won’t know (definitively) until the investigation is completed.”

O’Donohue acknowledge that his department did receive some assistance from Warren police. But, he said, information about the investigation shouldn’t have been shared with Fouts, the Daily Tribune reported. He called it, “improper,” and said Fouts should not comment about the investigation in social media.

O’Dononhue told the Daily Tribune that he recently spoke to Fouts and asked him to remove the Facebook post. Fouts told the newspaper his comments were just his opinion.

“I don’t have any direct knowledge,” Fouts told the Daily Tribune, “other than what I heard on the news and I had heard from some other people.”