The Unsolved Double Murder of the Grimes Sisters
This is the story of an unsolved double murder in Chicago Illinois, in 1956. When two sisters, 15-year-old Barbara and 12-year-old Patricia Grimes disappeared on their way home from a Brighton movie theater. Their disappearance had issued one of the largest missing person cases in the history of Chicago. The girls' nude bodies being discovered on the side of a desolate road in Willow Springs, 25 days after their disappearance. It was known as the crime that “shattered the innocence” of Chicago. This is a cold case, that is said to be Chicago's most infamous.
The Disappearance:
It was the evening of December 28th, 1956 when Barbara and Patricia Grimes left their house to catch a screening of Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender at the Brighton movie theater. The inseparable sisters were devoted fans and had recently joined his fan club. This was the 11th time they saw the film, but regardless they left their home at about 7:30pm that evening, promising their mother that they would return before midnight.
The Brighton theater was about 1.5 miles from their home, and it is unclear how the girls got to the theater that evening. They either walked or took the bus. The girls' had about $2.50 in their possession that night and were planning to watch a double feature. Dorothy Weinert, a school friend of Patricia's had been sitting behind the girls at the movie with her own sister. However, the Weinert girls had left the theater during intermission but claimed to see the Grimes sisters buying popcorn. Both girls seemed to be in good spirits when they left. The Grimes sisters had decided to stay for the second screening of Love Me Tender and were expected home by 11:45pm.
But, when the girls weren't home by midnight, their mother Lorretta began to worry. She sent their older sister, 17-year-old Theresa, and their brother, 14-year-old Joey to wait by the closest bus stop for the girls, while she called around to friends' houses to try and locate the girls. However, after three buses had passed without their siblings onboard, Theresa and Joey returned home. By the time they arrived, Lorretta had also exhausted all contacts and was really beginning to worry about her girls. She filed missing person reports with the Chicago Police Department at about 2:30am.
Sightings:
There were several sightings of the Grimes girls between the last confirmed sighting at the Brighton theater and the discovery of their bodies. Among these unconfirmed sightings were the following:
Several people had claimed they saw the girls getting onto a Chicago Transit Authority bus on
Archer Avenue which was heading east into the city, following the screening at the theater. Among those who have reported this sighting was the bus driver. The sisters got off the bus on Western Avenue, which was halfway between the theater and their home. It is unknown why the girls would have done this.
There was a young man by the name of Roger Menard, who also attended the screening of Love Me Tender. Roger sat behind the girls at the show near to the Weinert girls. Roger stated that he left the theater about a minute before the girls and that they were walking a short distance behind him on Archer Avenue. It was here that he said that a late model green Buick had stopped next to the girls, making them hesitate before continuing to walk. At some point, the girls passed him and while they were on 42nd street a black 1949 Mercury that was occupied by two teenage boys pulled up next to the girls, who according to Roger just giggled and kept walking in the direction of their home.
Two teenage boys named Ed Lorden and Earl Zastro had said that while they were driving around McKinley Park at roughly 11:30pm they had seen the Grimes sisters on 35th street. The boys claimed that the two girls were jumping out of doorways at each other and giggling up a storm. This allegedly happened near Seely and Damen Avenues which was about two blocks from their home. One of the boys had said to the other: “those two Grimes sisters”
There was also a security guard, whose name was Jack Franklin. Jack claimed that he had offered the girls directions on the morning of December 29th. This would have been about 12 hours after leaving the theater. It allegedly happened between Lawrence and Central Park Avenues. He claimed that the two girls were rather rude to him, and only later decided that it was the Grimes sisters. That same day, a friend of Barbara's, Judy Burrow reported that she had seen the girls around 2:30pm walking westward on Archer Avenue. While a classmate of Patricia's, Catherine Borak swore that she had seen Patricia walking past the restaurant where Borak had been eating that evening. According to the girl, Patricia had been in the company of two unidentified girls. Six hours later, at about 12:45am a cashier at the Clark theater in downtown Chicago claimed to have seen the girls.
While a railroad conductor, Bernard Norton had claimed he had seen the girls on a train near the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, in Glenview. Bernard swore that the girls were looking for two sailors named “Terry” and “Larry”.
The owner of the D&L restaurant claimed he had seen the girls around 5:30 in the morning on December 30th. Though he claimed that Patricia was either too drunk or sick to walk without staggering, and had been accompanied by suspect Edward Bedwell. This sighting was about 5.5 miles from the Brighton theater. While a clerk, having viewed the bodies positively identified the sisters to have checked into the Claremont Hotel on this date.
The girls were also reported to have been seen on a Chicago Transit Authority bus on Damen Avenue on January 1st, 1957. While a night clerk at the Unity Hotel swears that she refused the girls a room due to their age about a week later.
The girls were also spotted on January 3rd, 1957 at an Englewood Kresge department store listening to Elvis Presley music by three different employees.
Ironically, the girls were also spotted in Nashville, Tennessee on January 17th, 1957. They were spotted by a woman named Pearl Neville in a restroom. Pearl had accompanied the girls to an employment agency to search for work. She described the girls as being in a: “tired and bedraggled” state. A clerk at the agency confirmed Pearl's story after seeing a photograph of the girls. The clerk had even recalled that the girls used the surname Grimes to fill in their applications.
Also, in the early morning hours of January 14th, 1957 a classmate of Patricia's parents received two anonymous calls. On the first call, nobody appeared to be on the line. However, the second call which came about 15 minutes later, was a female caller who appeared “frightened and depressed” who had asked for their daughter. But, before they could get their daughter to the phone, the girl had hung up. They believed that the caller was none other than Patricia Grimes.
Following a January 19th plea from Elvis Presley himself for the girls to return home, Chicago Sun-Times advice columnist, Ann Landers had received an anonymous letter. This letter was allegedly written by a girl who had witnessed the Grimes sisters being forced into a car on the night of her disappearance. Although the letter came with a partial license plate number, the police came up with nothing. The girl has never been identified and the contents of the letter were never confirmed.
The Investigation:
The Grimes Sisters' disappearance had sparked the largest missing person case in Cook County. There was a citywide search which began almost immediately. This search had hundreds of officers assigned to the case, this included officers from surrounding suburbs. There was also a ground search that included the help of hundreds of volunteers, door-to-door canvassing, and several canals and rivers were dredged. They had distributed 15,000 flyers to homes, while the sisters' church offered a $1000 reward for any information leading to their whereabouts.
Around 300,000 people were questioned during the investigation, while about 2000 of them were interrogated. There were also two arrests but charges brought against them quickly collapsed. However, despite police efforts, and extensive media coverage which produced several sightings of the girls there was no hard evidence yielded from the investigation. No one knew what happened to the girls.
Several teenagers who had attended the screening of Love Me Tender on December 28th, claimed they have seen the sisters talking to and later getting into a car driven by a man who resembled Elvis Presley. This vehicle was described by several people as a Mercury model. And several of the investigators on the case had believed that the sisters simply ran away or were staying with boyfriends.
By December 31st, the girls' disappearance was front-page news. However, the case was only seriously considered as a missing person case after the family went one week without any contact from the girls.
There had been some extensive media appeals, asking the girls to return home, or any eyewitnesses to
contact police. This had resulted in several reported sightings as late as January 9th. It was these sightings that had backed up the investigators' initial thoughts that the girls had simply run away. There were even theories that the girls had run away to Nashville, Tennessee to see Elvis in concert or to emulate his lifestyle. However, Lorretta got into the media to publicly plea for the girls' safe return just in case they had been kidnapped. Even Elvis had put a public statement out requesting that the girls go home.
However, due to a rapid thaw of recent snowfall, a construction worker by the name of Leonard Prescott was driving German Church Road when he spotted something behind the guard rail. He later described them as “these flesh-colored things”. Leonard did not get out of his vehicle but later returned to the spot with his wife Maria. When the two got out to investigate, Maria fainted. The objects were actually the nude and frozen bodies of the Grimes sisters'. Leonard and Maria quickly reported the discovery to the Willow Springs Police Department.
After his positive identification of the body, the police would begin their search of the crime scene. About 160 officers from several suburban Chicago departments were assisted by several local volunteers. They had even received assistance from the Forest Preserves. However, the search uncovered nothing, and later the police would be ridiculed for the lack of organization and allowing so many untrained individuals to trample the potential crime scene, which would compromise any evidence that could have been found at the scene.
The Autopsy Findings:
The autopsies of both girls were performed just the day after the bodies were discovered. Although these autopsies were performed by three experienced pathologists, they could not agree on both a date or cause of death. They were able to confirm due to the contents of the stomachs, that both the girls did contain portions of the last known meals and snacks they would have eaten the night of their disappearance. This indicated that both girls had probably died within five hours after they were last seen at the Brighton theater. This made it so that the time of death was most likely December 28th or the early morning hours of December 29th. The cause of death was finally ruled as a combination of shock and exposure. They also concluded that most of the girls' injuries had been due to rodents after they were gone. Neither one of the girls was drunk, drugged, or poisoned. Their clothing was never found, and the bodies were clean. It was pretty likely that Barbara had sex before she died. Whether it was willing or not, was hard to say. They claimed that the secondary shock had set in due to exposure because the low temperatures had reduced their body temperature to levels incompatible with life. This means that the girls were likely alive when dumped on that road. The girls' were murdered.
It is believed that the Grimes sisters had lain on that side of the road for several days before being discovered. Their bodies were so well preserved because of the frigid temperatures in the weeks that were leading up to the discovery. The girls had lain for at least three weeks in that spot, because there had been a layer of snow in the area on January 9th which had rapidly melted before the discovery. However, the Chief Investigator for the Cook County Coroners office, Harry Glos, disagreed with the official time of death. He believed this because the marks on the girls were consistent with violence. There was also a thin layer of ice on the bodies which he said indicated that the girls were alive at least until January 7th. He claimed that there had only been snow after this date that would be enough to react with the girls' body heat to create the ice. This of course proved that the bodies had been warmed when dumped on the side of that road. He also claimed that both of the sisters had been sexually assaulted multiple times during their captivity. This was backed up by the fact that semen was found in Patricia, and curdled milk was found in Barbara's stomach, which she did not have on December 28th.
Suspects:
Edward Bedwell, a 21-year-old semi-literate drifter, was originally from Tennessee. He worked at a Chicago skid-row restaurant. He was also a tall man who resembled Elvis Presley. He was a suspect because his bosses from the restaurant, John and Minnie Duros had claimed that he and another young man was at their premises in the company of the Grimes girls' in the early morning hours of December 30th. They disclosed this information to the police on January 24th, and Edward was arrested and interrogated for three days.
At some point in those three days, Edward had confessed to the murders. However, there were parts of his confession that made no sense to the actual evidence in the case. Like the fact, he said that the girls were drinking and that he and William Cole Willingham had beaten the girls to death.
Willingham had denied that he and Edward had been with the Grimes girls, and he also denied any involvement in the murders. Eventually, Edward would recant the confession. Claiming that he was pushed into a confession by the police. Because the autopsies contradicted his confession, and he had alibis, it was granted and all charges were dropped. He was released on a $20,000 bond that was paid for by an individual in Champaign. It was in that same year that Edward was tried and acquitted of the rape of a 13-year-old girl in Oak Hill, Florida.
Max Fleig a 17-year-old boy was the prime suspect in the case. However, due to his age, Max was protected under Illinois law. It was illegal to give a minor a polygraph test and have it used as evidence against them. Still, the police had talked Max into taking an unofficial polygraph graph test, and didn't he confess to the murders. However, because the polygraph was not usable they were forced to let him go. In fact, they couldn't charge him with the crime at all because they lacked physical evidence in the case. Max was later tried and convicted of an unrelated murder concerning a young woman.
Finally, there was Walter Kranz was a 53-year-old steamfitter and self-proclaimed psychic. Walter had called in and claimed that the girls were deceased and that their bodies could be found in an unincorporated area of Lyons Township. He refused to give a name and claimed it had all come to him in a dream. The call was traced to a location close to his home and eventually, the police found him. He was an extreme interest as the park he had mentioned was only about 1 mile from where the bodies had been found. He was initially considered the number one suspect as his handwriting was close to the handwriting found on a ransom note that had been written to Lorretta before the bodies were discovered. Walter had denied any involvement, claiming that he came from a family of psychics and that the vision had come to him after he drank quite heavily. After multiple interrogations, Walter was also released.
It was in May of 1957 when Lorretta received a phone call from someone claiming to be the killer.
This caller had ridiculed the police's efforts in trying to capture the killer. However, the man ended the call when he disclosed information that not even the police knew at this point. The caller had said to Lorretta: “I know something about your little girl that no one else knows, not even the police. The smallest girl's toes were crossed at the feet!”
It would be a year after the murders that Lorretta revealed that she felt strongly like they knew their killer. Claiming that her girls would have never got into a car with a stranger. And, Cook County Sheriff, Joseph Lohman was convinced that the girls' had been beaten, tortured, and murdered by a sexual predator. One who had likely lured them into a vehicle when they had been walking home from the theater.
It was on the evening of the 18th anniversary of the girls' disappearance when Ernest Spiotto, who had been working this case from the beginning had announced there were still no credible suspects. The case remains open but unsolved. In 2013, the girls' younger brother James who was only 11 at the time of the murders, stated that he believed that the case would remain unsolved, but maybe there was a beacon of hope.
Unofficial Investigation:
It was in 2013 that retired West Chicago police officer, Raymond Johnson had taken a personal interest in the case. He had first become interested in 2010 and is now considered an expert. After extensive research on the case, he believes that the case could be still solvable with the help of the public. Raymond believes that the killer was a then 23-year-old self-confessed child killer Charles LeRoy Melquist. He had initially been a suspect in the girls' abduction and murders. He was also convicted of a September 1958 murder. The victim was 15-year-old Bonnie Leigh Scott. Who knew her killer. Her decapitated body was found two months after her disappearance. She was also dumped less than 10 miles from where the girls' bodies were found. There were obvious similarities between this murder and that of the Grimes sisters. However, Melquist could never be questioned because his attorney had forbidden it.
However, the day after the girl's decapitated body was found, Lorretta had received another phone call. From the same person claiming to be the killer. This time the person boasted about pulling off another perfect crime. Lorretta was convinced that this person was the same caller from May.
Charles was never charged with his alleged involvement in the abduction and murders of the Grimes sisters'. This case remains open and unsolved.
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