Classmates saw them leave the movie theater in good spirits. A month later, a driver mistook their frozen bodies for mannequins on the side of the road.
Barbara Grimes, 15, and her younger sister Patricia, 12, disappeared after seeing an Elvis Presley film in Chicago on December 28, 1956. Their murder remains one of the city's most infamous unsolved cases.
A Night at the Movies
The sisters, described by those who knew them as inseparable and devoted Elvis Presley fans, went to see "Love Me Tender" at the Brighton Theater that evening, a film they'd already watched close to a dozen times. Classmates who saw them there recalled them being in good spirits. When they didn't return by their midnight curfew, their mother, Loretta Grimes, called police.
Last Sightings
Several witnesses reported seeing the girls after they left the theater. A young man who'd been sitting near them said he saw a car pull up alongside them on Archer Avenue before driving off, and that a second car carrying two teenage boys stopped near them further down the road, with the girls laughing before continuing on foot. Two other teenagers driving through the neighborhood around 11:30 p.m. reported seeing the sisters playfully jumping out at each other from doorways, just two blocks from home.
A Massive Search
Chicago police canvassed the neighborhood, dragged local waterways, and distributed 15,000 flyers. Roughly 300,000 people were questioned over the following weeks, with around 2,000 treated as significant leads. Several people reported seeing the girls alive in the days after their disappearance, including a woman who claimed to have encountered them at an employment office in Nashville, Tennessee — a lead investigators took seriously for a time but were never able to confirm.
Discovery
On January 22, 1957, nearly a month after they vanished, a motorist driving near Willow Springs, Illinois, spotted what he initially mistook for mannequins behind a guardrail. They were the frozen, unclothed bodies of Barbara and Patricia. Investigators believed the girls had been dragged or thrown down an embankment near a creek.
An Inconclusive Autopsy
Three forensic pathologists examined the bodies for five hours and couldn't agree on an exact cause of death, though they concluded the girls died within hours of leaving the theater. Barbara had wounds to her chest and injuries to her face and head; a private pathologist hired by the family later stated she had also been sexually assaulted, a detail police were reluctant to confirm publicly at the time. Patricia had bruising to her face and head. The official cause of death for both was ultimately listed as shock and exposure, reached largely by ruling out other explanations. Neither girl had alcohol or drugs in their system.
A Confession, Then a Recantation
In late January 1957, a restaurant owner told police that one of his employees, Edward "Bennie" Bedwell, had been seen with two girls resembling the sisters days after their disappearance. After three days of interrogation, Bedwell signed a lengthy confession claiming he and an acquaintance, Cole Willingham, had spent over a week with the girls before killing them. Loretta Grimes was adamant her daughters would never have been where Bedwell described. The confession also didn't match the autopsy findings, and Bedwell later recanted, saying he'd only confessed after days of pressure and threats during questioning. He was released on bond, and no charges related to the Grimes case were ever sustained against him.
A Suspect Never Charged
Decades later, a retired Chicago detective identified Charles LeRoy Melquist as a person of interest, based on striking similarities to a case Melquist was actually convicted of: the 1958 murder of 15-year-old Bonnie Leigh Scott, a girl he knew personally, whose body was found decapitated less than 10 miles from where the Grimes sisters were discovered. Melquist was never formally questioned in connection with the Grimes case, reportedly on his attorney's advice, and he died in 2010 without ever being charged.
A Separate Theory
A different retired detective has separately pointed to Kenneth Hansen, later convicted in the unrelated 1955 murders of three boys known as the Schuessler-Peterson case, noting Hansen had reportedly been at the same theater the same night as the Grimes sisters and leased property near where their bodies were found. Hansen died in prison in 2007 and, like Melquist, was never charged in the Grimes case. A semen sample collected from Barbara Grimes at the time has since been lost by law enforcement, permanently limiting any future DNA comparison to either suspect.
A Mother's Lifelong Search
Loretta Grimes spent the rest of her life seeking answers and pushing investigators to keep the case active. She died in 1989, reportedly still carrying photos of her daughters, without ever learning who killed them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was anyone ever convicted of murdering the Grimes sisters?
No. Despite an extensive investigation involving hundreds of thousands of interviews, the case remains officially unsolved.
Who are the leading suspects?
Two men have been proposed by different investigators in later years — Charles Melquist and Kenneth Hansen — both based on similarities to other crimes they were separately convicted of. Neither was ever charged in the Grimes case, and both have since died.
Could DNA still solve the case?
It's unlikely. A key semen sample collected from Barbara Grimes's body has since been lost by law enforcement, and no other confirmed biological evidence from the scene is known to survive.