Hey, y’all. Thanks for stopping by. Last week the infamous Boy in the Box was finally identified as Joseph Augustus Zarelli and hopefully his case will eventually be solved. Joseph was killed in 1957, but wasn’t identified until 65 years, 9 months and 13 days later. That made me think about other unsolved cases. I came across the case of the murder of the Grimes sisters in Chicago took place in 1956, which is only a year before Joseph’s murder. The only way these old cases get solved is by people continuing to talk about them. Sometimes, cold cases warm back up.
P.S. Elvis makes an appearance in this story.
Contents
Love Me Tender
Barbara Grimes was born in 1941 and her sister Patricia Grimes was born in 1943 in Chicago, Illinois. They were two of their parents Loretta and Joseph Grimes’ six children.
The sisters were obsessed with Elvis. I mean really obsessed. People like to make fun of Harry Styles stans, but this isn’t a new phenomenon. They loved Elvis so much that on December 28, 1956, the duo went to the Brighton Theater to see the latest Elvis movie, Love Me Tender.
This wasn’t the first time Barbara and Patricia had seen the movie. One source says this was their 11th time, while another says it was their 15th, but regardless, they obviously loved the movie. Or Elvis. Either way.
The theater was only a mile and a half from their home in McKinley Park, and they left at 7:30 p.m. with $2.50 on them. They promised their mother they would be back by midnight. It’s not clear how the girls traveled to the theater, but most likely they took a bus or walked.
Times really are different now, aren’t they? It would be unheard of for a parent to let their adolescent daughters walk to the theater in a city. I suppose cases like this are why we are more protective of children.
Up and vanished
The theater was having a double feature, with the first showing ending at about 9:30. According to a friend who saw them at the movies, they stayed for the second showing and bought popcorn during the intermission. They appeared normal and happy. No red flags.
After the second showing, the girls would have arrived home around 11:45. By the time midnight rolled around, the girls hadn’t made it home, so their mother sent their older sister and brother to wait at the bus stop for them.
But three buses came and went with no Barbara or Patricia.
Loretta contacted the girls’ friends, but they weren’t at any of their houses, so at 2:15 a.m. on December 29, 1956, she filed a missing person report with Chicago PD.
Initially, police thought that the pair had run away from home or were with friends or their boyfriends. By December 31, the disappearance was front-page news, but the search didn’t really take off until a week passed with no contact from the girls.
This investigation is one of the largest investigations in Cook County history, with hundreds of police officers assigned to the search full-time. Cook County police called in assistance from neighboring areas and even formed a task force in hopes of locating the girls.
More than 15,000 flyers were given to people in the city and hung throughout. And her church offered a $1,000 reward, which is the equivalent of $9,945.26 if you account for inflation.
By the time the case went cold, police had interviewed 300,000 people. That is not a typo 300,000 interviews.
Elvis Presley even did a radio spot imploring the girls to return home.
Discovery of the bodies
Heavy snow melted away in January, and on January 22, 1957, construction worker Leonard Prescott saw something weird on the side of rural German Church Road. He described what he saw as “these flesh-colored things” and initially thought he was looking at mannequins. It’s almost never a mannequin, Leonard.
Because he didn’t realize what he had stumbled upon was the girls’ remains, he returned home and told his wife Marie about what he had seen. Leonard and Marie returned to German Church Road, and Marie reportedly fainted after realizing she was looking at the remains of two nude girls.
The bodies were on a flat section of ground right behind the guardrail. Barbara was on her left side, and Patricia was laying on her back on top of Barbara’s head. Police believed that this wasn’t the murder scene and that their bodies had either been placed or thrown over the guardrail.
Barbara had stab wounds that resembled an ice pick stab wound on her chest and there was evidence of a beating to her head and face. Patricia didn’t have any stab wounds, but she too had been badly beaten.
No evidence was found at the site where the sisters were found.
Cause of death
The next day, three forensic pathologists performed autopsies on the remains. They determined that the girls most likely died within five hours of being seen at the theater, making the time of death late December 28 or early December 29.
As for the actual cause of death, the experts reached the same conclusion of shock and exposure. If this sounds off to you, it did to me too. The pathologists came to this conclusion only by eliminating other possible causes of death.
They believed that the wounds were caused by rats and that the puncture wounds took place after their deaths. None of the wounds would have been fatal, and toxicology reports showed that the girls hadn’t been drunk or drugged.
Barbara had signs of sexual intercourse, but it’s not clear if this was consensual or not. I’m going to assume it wasn’t because she was murdered. Semen was found in Patricia, so it seems sexual assault could be a motive.
The girls’ clothing and personal belongings were never found.
Why did it take so long for the girls to be found? The theory is that they were placed there before the cold temperatures and snow and ice that blanked Chicago in January.
The chief investigator for the Cook County Coroner’s Office disagreed with this conclusion. Harry Glos went as far as to tell the media that the injuries were caused by violence, not rodents. He also believed that the girls had been alive until January 7 because there was a thin layer of ice over their remains, indicating that they were warm when the snow covered them and the snow fell on January 7th/8th.
I should note here that the girls had reputations for hanging outside of bars and asking older men to buy them alcohol. This doesn’t make their murders less important, but it’s a possible motive and opportunity.
Suspects
Walter Kranz
Walter Kranz was a 53-year-old steamfitter and a psychic. Do you guys believe in psychics? I personally think it’s a bunch of hooey, but I could be wrong.
Anyway, he called Chicago PD on January 15 to tell them that he had a vision of the location of the girls. This location was only a mile from where the bodies were eventually located. Walter refused to give the police his name, but they traced his phone call.
Handwriting experts say that Walter may have written a ransom note that was sent to Loretta before the discovery of their bodies.
But there was not enough to keep him, and he was released.
Charles Melquist
Charles Melquist was found guilty of murdering 15-year-old Bonnie Leigh Scott. Bonnie was killed in 1958 and her body was discovered not far from the location of the Grimes sisters.
Plus police found a note in Charles’ apartment with a list of young women who lived in the Grimes’s neighborhood.
He was interviewed by police but quickly released. There was speculation that Charles was protected by the Chicago mob.
Max Fleig
At the time of Barbara and Patricia’s death, Max Fleig was 17 years old. He was a prime suspect because of his age. I tried to find more information about this, but that’s the only explanation for his suspicion.
Max took a voluntary polygraph, which he failed, and he confessed to the murders. But because lie detector tests mean literally nothing, he was released. Oh, and it was illegal to subject minors to polygraphs. I guess the cops missed that day at the academy.
Interestingly, Max was later convicted of the murder of another young lady, so maybe he was involved.
Edward Bedwell
Edward “Bennie” Bedwell was a 21-year-old driver who was originally from Tennessee. He was kicked out of his parents’ home in Chicago only a month before the Grimes murders. He worked at a restaurant in Chicago’s skid row.
Bennie reportedly looked like Elvis, making the idea that the girls would be interested in talking to him more plausible.
The owners of the restaurant informed police that they had seen Bennie and another young man at the restaurant with two young girls on December 30. The owners claimed the girls resembled the Grimes sisters.
Bennie was arrested on January 24 and was interrogated by police for three days. He eventually signed a 14-page confession. In the confession, he says that he and another man named William Cole Willingham were with the girls until January 7, partying and drinking at several bars in skid row.
But when the girls refused their sexual advances, Bennie and William beat them before dumping their bodies on the side of that road. But Bennie denied that the girls were the Grimes sisters and any involvement in the crime.
Bennie later recanted stating that he only confessed after being coerced for days by the police.
The autopsy didn’t support Bennie’s version of events in his confession. He claimed to have fed them hot dogs and that they were drinking alcohol, but neither was found the in the girls’ systems. And the girls had not been beaten to death.
Add to that Bennie’s alibi of being at work at the likely time of the girls’ abductions, and we know he didn’t do it. Innocent people confess all the time.
What now?
That’s really it. The case is as cold as Antarctica.
Loretta Grimes died in 1989 without ever knowing what really happened to her girls.
I can’t decide who I think is the culprit in this case. None of them seem very likely, but Max Fleig might be my first choice because he murdered another woman, but you could say that about Charles Melquist too.
Let me know who you think the culprit is in the comments below and if you have any information about the case, contact Cook County PD.
Sources
- https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/murders-of-barbara-and-patricia-grimes
- https://crimecapsule.com/cold-case-frozen-the-grimes-sisters-of-chicago/
- https://www.123helpme.com/essay/The-Murders-Of-Barbara-And-Patricia-Grimes-776148
- https://www.liquisearch.com/murder_of_the_grimes_sisters/suspects/max_fleig