2022 in review: Some of the biggest news in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights from the first quarter of the year

It's been a year filled with news in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights.

As 2022 comes to a conclusion, we're breaking the year down into quarters and profiling some of the most read and biggest news stories from both the Press & Guide print editions and pressandguide.com.

This is a look at news from Jan. 1 to March 31.

Coronavirus and other COVID-19-related stories dominated the news cycle in 2020,continued to be big in 2021, but as 2022 rolled around, stories were less about that, and more "normal" with a mix of topics taking top spots.

As always, crime dominated the headlines though.

The most read story of the quarter was about a Dearborn Heights pharmacist who was charged with fraud. In a related story that wasn't quite as popular, her husband was also charged with fraud the same day in a related but separate investigation.

Dearborn Heights pharmacist charged in $10.6 million fraud ring

A Dearborn Heights pharmacist was arrested March 22 for her alleged role in a $10.6 million insurance fraud ring.

Federal authorities have charged Zeinab Makki, 59, with one count of health care fraud.

According to the criminal complaint, Makki submitted or "caused to be submitted" at least $10.6 million in claims to Medicare and Medicaid for pharmaceuticals that were not actually dispensed.

Dearborn Heights man charged with wire fraud for using COVID-relief funds to buy condominium in Lebanon

A Dearborn Heights man was charged March 22 with wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly using $1 million in federal Economic Injury Disaster Loans to purchase a condominium in Beirut, Lebanon.

Wahid Mohamed Makki, 59, was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering for his role in purchasing the condominium.

According to the criminal complaint, Makki transferred approximately $1,082,600 from 10 separate EIDL loans obtained for 10 shell corporations to a bank in the Republic of Turkey via international wire. The wire transfer instructions reflect that Makki transferred the funds for the purchase of a "sea view condo in Beirut, Lebanon."

Serial killer from Dearborn Heights caught after woman's body found, featured on new TV docu-series

A story about a serial killer from Dearborn Heights was all the rage in January, as the second most popular story written in this quarter.

Serial killer from Dearborn Heights caught after woman's body found, featured on new TV docu-series

The story documented Eric John Armstrong's January 2000 arrest, and the show that was featuring him after all this time.

On Jan. 2, 2000, a woman's partially clothed body was pulled from the Rouge River in Dearborn Heights.

That ended up being the final case that caused John Eric Armstrong's killing spree to finally end. Armstrong was living in Dearborn Heights at the time of his arrest a few months after the body was found. At the time of his arrest, he was 26-years-old and had a young child, with another on the way.

Armstrong's spree had stretched several years, and across the globe, as he used his position as a sailor in the Navy to kill between five and 18 women. The true total was never conclusive, as investigators couldn't confirm all of the deaths.

Now 22 years later, Armstrong is the last serial killer in the Metro Detroit region to be convicted. He's being featured in a series called "Twisted Killers," which airs on the Oxygen channel at 9 p.m. on Thursdays.

The intent was "to either harm her, kill her, or dispose of her body," Don Riley, a retired Dearborn Heights PD detective sergeant, said in the show.

At the scene, the victim's hands were wrapped in plastic to preserve possible DNA evidence and police spoke with the man who reported the body. He claimed he stumbled upon it when he fell ill while driving and stopped his car to vomit.

Armstrong was the man who notified the police of the body.

Man recalls run-in with Dearborn Heights serial killer; final victim found just outside his house

A second story on that case, where we found a witness who talked with Armstrong the day his final victim was discovered, was also very popular in the first quarter of the year.

Man recalls run-in with Dearborn Heights serial killer; final victim found just outside his house

Alan Berry was just 17 when he was flagged down by John Eric Armstrong on that fateful day.

Berry was leaving his house, which is across the street from where the body of Wendy Jordan, 39, was found, near Parkland Park and the Rouge River Bridge.

"I was just taking my then-girlfriend home," Berry said. "I lived three houses away from the bridge on Ann Arbor Trail between Evergreen and Outer Drive."

Armstrong was living just a few blocks from there at the time himself.

"I got to where the bridge was, and this man walked off of the side of the bridge and flagged me down," he said.

Berry said Armstrong told him to call the cops because there was a dead body in the river.

"I looked over and saw a woman in the river," he said. "She had a leather jacket on and her underwear and skirt were down at her ankles."

Berry said he sent his girlfriend to his house to get his father and uncle, and he called 911 while she was doing that.

Berry said they all stood there for a few minutes when he decided to take his girlfriend home.

"Turns out I shouldn't have done that," he said. "She actually had seen him pull up to the bridge."

A third story on Armstrong, this time from the perspective of the authors of a book about his killing spree, was also popular when it was published in March.

IceBurg thriving after replacing former JP's Bar and Grille in Dearborn

New business stories were also popular, with the most read one being about IceBurg opening up in the former JP's Bar and Grille.

IceBurg thriving after replacing former JP's Bar and Grille in Dearborn

Hussein Beydoun was in the right place at the right time, and it ended up being the start of one of Dearborn's newest restaurants.

Beydoun is a local resident who, along with his wife, Samah, owns the Smart Start Learning Center daycare right next to the former JP's Bar and Grille.

A pharmacist by trade, Beydoun purchased the building from Joey Plonka with the goal of entering the restaurant business.

That turned into IceBurg, a burger and ice cream restaurant at 22145 W. Outer Drive.

Beydoun teamed with business partner Tariq "Eric" Hamed, and got to work renovating the building, coming up with the concept, and testing products.

"I've never worked in a restaurant for a single day before we opened this place," Beydoun said.

Beydoun said he teamed with Hamed for guidance and experience in the industry.

IceBurg was popular again later in the year when they allowed a second new restaurant to operate inside of it. That's when Brazen Bagels opened up for the early morning shifts.

State gaming control board to start cracking down on illegal gambling machines found in Dearborn

Former Dearborn Police Officer Rich Margittay tipped the Press & Guide off to some illegal gambling machines in the city, and all over the region for a February story.

The State Gaming Board commented at that time that they were cracking down on machines like that, and a few months later many of the machines, including the ones Margittay spoke of, were removed by the state.

State gaming control board to start cracking down on illegal gambling machines found in Dearborn

The "pusher" machines have a bed where various coins or other prizes are placed and are slowly pushed forward as consumers drop coins or tokens into the machine.

Other than using coins and even paper money, Margittay said these machines are illegal due to the design, allowing an unknowable amount of coins to spill off the side of the bed, and going back to the house, not to a payout to the player.

Margittay has written two books on illegal gaming machines: "Carnival Games: the Perfect Crimes: An Alert for Law Enforcement and Would-Be Victims," published in 2009, and "Carnival Games: $10,000,000,000 Hoodwink Racket: Organized Crime on the American Midway," published in 2011.

Margittay was a Dearborn officer from 1969 to 1994 and completed a gambling seminar through the Wayne County Detectives Association in 1987. The training, based on information from the state Attorney General's Office, included carnival games enforcement.

Other top stories from the quarter included a lot of smaller police blotter type items, but also a story about the CBS show "Good Sam" mentioning Dearborn in it's pilot episode, a story on local history and home designs, and a couple stories about the local real estate market.