The Unsolved Murders of the Grimes Sisters

2022-02-09 21:11:46 Written by Alex

The Unsolved Murders of the Grimes Sisters: Chicago, Illinois 1957

 

On December 28, 1956, sisters Barbara Grimes, 15, and Patricia Grimes, 12 left their home with the programs of going to see Elvis Presley’s movie “Love Me Tender” at the 8:00 p.m. showing. While there, many classmates saw the sisters there and all remembered them being in great spirits. When the girls failed to make their midnight curfew, Mrs. Grimes reported them missing. Despite widespread actions in locating the girls, their disappearances went unsolved until a man driving along an unincorporated road found out their naked and frozen corpses nearly a month later. Despite the circumstances surrounding their disappearances being a total mystery, what pathologists discovered during their autopsies was even more so. 

 

“We’re leaving mom! The show begins at 8:00 and we might see the second showing at 10:00; either way, we will be home by midnight. I have $2.50 in my wallet to spend for both showings if we decide to stay. I love you!” 

 

Barbara slips on her winter coat and snow boots to reduce the consequences of the bitter Illinois winter- she hustles her younger sister Patricia out the door to make the showing on time. The weather has been especially cold in recent weeks and she and her sister Patricia are in a hurry to catch the public transportation bus. If they miss it, they will be freezing the whole mile and a half walk to the theater. As Barbara is pushing her younger sister down the driveway in a try to quicken her pace, her mum yells out the door.

 

“Move .50 cents of that money into your coin purse, Barbara Jeanne! I don’t want you to risk losing both! … and keep Patricia in your sights at all times!” 

Mrs. Grimes watches as her two daughters walk hand in hand to watch their favorite artist on the film. They had already watched it nearly a dozen times but they never missed an opportunity to see Elvis; she can’t help but appreciate their tenacity for life. She watches her children until they round the drive and slowly fade from view. 

 

Once the girls reached the Brighton Theatre, they sat directly in front of their classmate and friend, Dorothy Weinert. The girls stayed in their seats for the first showing and once it was over, Dorothy got up to leave. She decided not to wait for the second showing like Patricia and Barbara. When she was walking out of the theater she remembered seeing the sisters standing in line to buy popcorn. They appeared to be in happy spirits and genuinely pleased to see their beloved celebrity crush on film for the second time of the night.

 

After the second “Love me Tender” showing, Patricia and Barbara left the theatre and started to walk home. A young man by the name of Roger Menard left nearly a minute before the sisters and stated that they were walking behind him. As they were walking down Archer Avenue a late model green Buick stopped alongside them before driving off as the girls continued walking. Just past 42nd street, Roger claimed that a black 1949 Mercury occupied by two teenage boys, including one that looked comparable to Elvis Presley stopped next to the girls; the girls started chuckling and continued walking in the direction of their house. 

 

At 11:30 p.m., two teenage boys that were aware of the sisters were driving through McKinney Park and spotted the sisters jumping out of doorways at one another and giggling. The boys remembered saying to one another “There are the Grimes sisters!” At this point, the girls were only two blocks away from their home and should have returned home by 11:45 p.m. at the rate they were traveling. 

 

“Where are they? They were presumed to be home nearly 20 minutes ago.” Mrs. Grimes asks her oldest daughter Theresa. As she walks back and forth watching out the window, she starts to panic. She has always known her daughters to be honest and responsible, certainly, they wouldn’t do this purposely. After waiting another ten minutes, she decides something needs to be done. 

 

“Theresa, take your brother Joey with you to the bus stop and wait there to see if you see any clue of your sisters. I am going to stay home just in case they come home.” As Theresa and Joey walk off, she can’t help but feel an irresistible sense of fear. 

 

Another hour has passed and there is no clue of any of her four children. Just as she starts to walk out the door to check for herself, she sees Theresa and Joey walking down the long drive; her heart drops at the absence of her daughters. 

 

“Nothing?” That was all she could force out of her throat. Once Theresa confirmed that they waited for three buses to stop to make certain they weren’t on any of them, she decided it was time to call the police and report them missing. 

At 2:15 a.m. on December 28, Loretta Grimes, Patricia and Barbara’s mum officially reported her daughters as missing. Investigators instantly started door-to-door canvassing in the neighborhood that they were last noticed in and local canals and rivers were dragged. 

 

Over the next weeks, 15,000 flyers were distributed to local homes, and parishioners of a local church donated a $1,000 reward for any data leading to their return. 300,000 people were questioned and almost 2,000 of these were particularly considered as suspects. 

 

One of the oldest parts of the sister’s disappearances is the observers that placed the girls at local businesses up until January 9th. Several theories started circling the small town with one of them being that the girls left willingly to travel to Nashville, Tennessee to watch Elvis Presley in concert. Many of the investigators on the case thought this theory due to there being several people who saw the girls alive in the week following their disappearance. 

 

In a call that appeared to solidify what authorities thought happened, on January 17 a woman by the name of Pearl Neville reached investigators and claimed that she met the Grimes sisters in Nashville, Tennessee on January 9th. She allegedly took them to an employment center to help them out because they looked confused and frightened. A clerk at the office recognized the girls via pictures and remembered that they used to surname “Grimes” on their applications. 

 

On January 14 the parents of Sandra Tollstan, one of Patricia’s classmates received two unidentified phone calls. On the first call, no one on the other line reacted when it was answered and on the second call, Sandra’s mum heard a frightened female voice on the other line asking “Sandra, is that you? Is Sandra there?” and before her mum had a chance to give Sandra the phone, the line went dead. When she remembered this incident to investigators, she was positive that the young girl she spoke with was indeed Patricia Grimes. 

 

After enormous snow that fell the week following their disappearance started quickly melting, Leonard Prescott was driving along a rural country road near Willow Springs, Illinois when he sighted “two flesh-colored things” laying behind a short guardrail that caught his attention. Later that evening, he came back to the spot with his wife; upon closer inspection, he acknowledged that what he determined were mannequins were the naked and frozen corpses of Patricia and Barbara. 

 

After almost a month of Mrs. Grimes's questions going unanswered, on January 22nd the corpses of her daughters were recognized with the help of her husband. After identification by Mr. Grimes, investigators moved forward with their inquiry as a double homicide.

 

Once the crime scene was examined, it was assumed that the girls were either dragged or thrown behind a ten-foot-long guardrail that blocked off the embankment of a creek known as Devil’s Creek. They were frozen to the ground and exhibited what appeared to be apparent signs of a battle or violent death. 

 

Due to the circumstances surrounding their deaths, three different forensic pathologists were appointed to conduct the girls’ autopsies. They examined the corpses for five hours and were incapable to reach an agreement on either the time or reason of death; nonetheless, they did agree that the girls perished within five hours of leaving the theatre. Three wounds resembling the wounds affected by an icepick were discovered on Barbara’s chest and wounds resembling blunt force trauma were found out on her face and head; she also either had consensual or non-consensual sex right around the time of her death. Several bruises were also discovered on Patricia’s face and head. 

 

The reason for death for Patricia and Barbara was ultimately ruled as being a combination of shock and exposure but this reason for death was reached by eliminating other causes. The pathologists also assumed that many of the wounds found on their corpses were caused by rodents and that the puncture wounds discovered on Barbara’s chest were caused post-mortem. The autopsy disclosed that neither girl had alcohol or drugs in their systems, ruling out the fact that they may have been drugged. When found, their corpses were unnaturally clean despite being exposed to the elements and none of their clothing was located. 

 

One of the coroners that aided in performing their autopsies determined that their corpses laid behind the guardrail for nearly three weeks and supported this by claiming that the blanket of snow that fell on January 9th kept their corpses hidden until it melted on January 22nd. Nonetheless, the chief investigator for the Cook County Police Department strongly believes that the girls perished after January 7th since there was a layer of ice covering their skin. For happen, the heat leaving their skin would have had to respond with the freezing moisture in the air. 

 

On January 24, after the finding of their corpses was made public, John and Minnie Duros, the owners of a local restaurant, reached authorities with the advice that one of their workers was accompanied by two young girls that resembled the Grimes sisters on the night of December 30, two days after their disappearance; he was also in the company of another young man.

 

Edward Bedwell, the young man in question was charged in connection to the killings. After three days of interrogation, he signed a 14-page admission claiming that he and his friend Cole Willingham spent the week of December 30-January 7 with the Grimes Sisters drinking in various bars on the local Skid Row. He claimed that after days of drinking and feeding the girls hot dogs, they beat the girls harshly for declining their sexual advances and dumped them off an embankment. Nonetheless, Mrs. Grimes was adamant that her daughters knew nothing of Skid Row, let alone where it was. The autopsies performed ruled out his admission as being legitimate due to there being no alcohol or hot dog discovered in either of their stomach contents.

 

Cole Willingham staunchly refuted any involvement in their murders. He did admit to being with two girls that week but claimed that it was not Patricia and Barbara. Edward Bedwell later rejected his confession and admitted that he gave an incorrect confession under severe and lengthy interrogation. On February 6 he was freed on a $20,000 bond and that same year he was tried and acquitted for the rape of a 13-year-old girl. 

 

After the recanted confession from Bedwell, detectives zoned in on Walter Kranz, a self-proclaimed psychic that called authorities on January 15 under an unknown name and number and told them that he had an illusion that the girls were found in an unincorporated part of Lyons Township. When inquired how he knew this information, he rejected to share his individuality but the call was traced back to his home. The park Kranz described in the phone call was just a mile from where Patricia and Barbara’s corpses were located. 

 

When handwriting specialists examined a ransom note sent to Mrs. Grimes before the finding of their corpses, they assumed that it was likely that Walter did write the ransom note that was sent. After serious interrogation, he was ultimately cleared of any involvement. 

 

 After an investigation that involved over 160 officers, various police department's Officers, hundreds of thousands of leads, and several likely suspects, the true events of what took place that ended with the unnatural deaths of Patricia and Barbara Grimes stays unsolved.

Source

Wikipedia

Cold case blogger