The Murder of the Grimes Sisters | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

[Music] hey weirdos I'm Alina and I'm Ash and this is [Music] morbid and it's morbid in the
morning it is and my brain is also not functioning on any kind of high frequency right now so I AP at a time
she's a little Wily today I said my child's name wrong while I was just talking about her I like I put like all
the names into one yeah that was interesting I liked that though yeah I'm just not I'm not with it I'm not with it
get with it I'm trying to get with it maybe we should get you a pumpi imagine [ __ ] 8 a.m. pump
drinking a pump at .m. honestly goals Lisa vender pump is that you oh my Lord uh yeah I don't do I don't think I have
anything exciting to talk about maybe because my brain isn't working so yeah um I don't know um the actor strike is
over that's exciting so now we'll get TV yay I'm just excited about stranger things season five hell yeah brothers so
countown to my wedding is on again again everybody was very concerned that me and
Drew didn't get married in October like we said we were going to but you know family things happen you move things and
yeah now we're getting married at another time there you go that I'm not telling I'll never
tell yep we're almost there folks so close I'm about to be CL a whole ass wife youel it's true yep um but before
that uh we're going to talk about some Terrible Things yeah that's our job so that's what we do and we're here to do
it uh this particular one that I'm going to talk about is from the 50s shut up uh
I will not not shut up shut up it's like in Princess or not Princess Diaries it's
like in Mean Girls and she's like I didn't say anything I didn't say anything um I was just going to say that
my case this week is also from the 50s or my next one I guess it'll be next week who knows well I don't know when
any of these come out it'll be out of time by the time this comes out Ash could be married I have no idea about
any concept yeah just nodded so congratulations on getting married thank you so much it was such a great time
with you there yeah so we're 50s today and this is unsolved technically oh technically
that tells me it should have been solved there's someone who's an interesting suspect who unfortunately we can't
really get anymore but oh there was someone that they followed we'll get there but it's it's
technically unsolved I really think it has the potential to be closed ah at some point okay can we do like a little
exm maybe yeah there you go I think I I would like to see this close because this is a really really sad story and
the I her their parents especially their mother I feel like carried guilt that she didn't need to carry oh that's
terrible and I hate that she had it on her and that she like felt that way and like oh it just I can't fathom it so
let's get into this horrible horrible tale okay so the murder of the Grim sisters and the investigation that
followed is still one of Chicago's most notorious cold cases and it is one of the most costly and labor intensive
searches in the state's history wow um despite all of the hard work put into search for this killer the investigation
was ultimately hitting dead end after dead end partially because of bad leads at times that were chased a little too
far and also some well-intended but very misguided attempts to withhold evidence
that allowed this killer to still go unpunished to this day wow um and it left generations of people wondering
what the hell happened to Barbara and Patricia Grimes oh I think I know this one it's really sad yeah uh and we'll
get to it but there is some withholding of information from the press and the public that obviously that is very
important sometimes and obviously that can push a case forward sometimes I fully support that yeah in this case the
reasoning behind it was like and then it actually ended up kind of hurting in the
end um which was obviously not the intent of the people who did it but it didn't work out well in the end so
Barbara Grimes was born May 5th 1941 and Patricia Grimes was born December 31st 1943 a couple years later in a New
Year's baby yeah so they were both born and grew up in Chicago Illinois and were
the third and fourth of what would be seven children born to Joseph and Loretta Grimes wow that's a lot of kids
Joseph and Loretta had married very young uh they actually married when they were both 17 years old oh were they just
like in love they were just in love and then when they were 19 they had their first child a daughter
Shirley like such cute names I know it's really cute like Loretta Shirley Patricia you know Barbara since they
married so young they didn't really get a chance to pursue a formal education yeah that makes and they kind of started
a family quick so they definitely struggled in the beginning yeah and and I mean with that many children yeah and
they relied on welfare they kind of went without basic needs a lot like heat and
electricity electricity in the beginning um eventually though that the struggle was only for a little while and they got
through it but during the struggling time as we know that can be tough yeah definely they they have all these kids
that they keep having and the struggle is getting worse the burden the financial burden is becoming harder but
eventually Joseph did manage to find work as a truck driver and by the late 1940s he was making around $80 per week
which now would be about $950 per week okay um so that was a stable salary and it did help relieve
that Financial pressure that was happening especially having six children and one on the way at that moment so at
that moment he had six children and one on the way that's a lot of pressure unfortunately the couple had not
weathered the struggling time as well as they had hoped and in December 1951 they
filed for divorce oh that's sad now luckily for the entire family including the kids Joseph and Loretta's divorce
was pretty uncomplicated they very much agreed on it mutually there wasn't a lot
of fighting it wasn't a lot of upheaval and nastiness it was like they still respect that this wasn't working with
too much happened and once the papers had been signed and the divorce was official they went their separate ways
Barbara Patricia and three of their five siblings remained in the custody of their mother and Joseph moved to an
apartment not far away they still saw their father everything was chill hunky dory yeah now the only problem was
without the income of Joseph's job although he did pay $35 per week in child support uh from his $80 a week
salary so a good junk um Loretta was forced to find work and luckily she quickly did she um got work as a file
clerk for Park Davis Pharmaceuticals um unfortunately it wasn't enough to really
take care of every I mean again they have seven kids that's a lot um so they did have to rely on welfare still some
social supports from time to time she worked a lot of hours but despite that she prided herself and everyone said it
including like everybody the whole family said it that she was an amazing mother to her kids and she did the best
she could while she was at home to be there whenever she could that's incredible to have that much pressure on
you of like staying AF financially working all these hours and then to still be a great mom when you're home
present and do whatever you could to be there for them like that's amazing Loretta was killing it yeah so by all
accounts Barbara and Patricia in particular were smart polite very well-liked girls in their neighborhood
in their whole Community really at school Barbara ended up having a a part-time job at 15 years old when she
was only a sophomore at Kelly High high school and she actually ended up working
at Wolf Furniture house um and she ended up doing that to help her mom make ends
meet so she immediately was like I want to help cuz she respected her mom a lot yeah now her younger sister Patricia was
described as super friendly a little more outgoing than Barbara and more energetic energetic than Barbara uh
Barbara and Patricia were also described as seemingly Inseparable and they were said to often walk places hand in hand
oh my God that's so sweet now Barbara is 15 Patricia is 13 so they're pretty close in age pretty close in age uh the
two girls had a lot of interests in common uh but like many of their peers at the time what they were really
passionate about was Elvis Presley oh Elvis baby Elvis Presley now in 1956 Presley was only a handful of years into
what would be what we all know an iconic career you say yeah he had a pretty iconic Elvis huh yeah you know now as
devoted Elvis fans Barbara and Patricia would often spend their afternoons at the local record store listening to his
singles they would find anywhere that had a jukebox around town just to hear his music over and over again and at
home they their whole bedroom was covered in pictures of him that they cut out of magazines you could also get them
at the Five and Dime Store so they had purchase them whenever they could so cool and in the fall uh by the fall of
1956 they joined his fan club and were eagerly awaiting their membership cards oh I love it that's so much fun isn't
that adorable it's just like I remember a time when it was like magazines like Teen Beat magazines and like Tiger Beat
and all that [ __ ] you could like send away for stuff they had like fan club mail you send it was wild so on November
15th 1956 um Elvis Presley's first feature film Love Me Tender was released in theaters across the country um it was
something if you were a devoted Elvis fan you were going to see that movie a million times is happening and as
dedicated Presley fans Barbara and Patricia got their opening night and by Christmas they had seen the film a done
of like dozens of times I love that so much um they had seen it a ton but Barbara and Patricia just couldn't get
enough of it and on December 28th my birthday ah and a couple days before one of their birthdays yep um on December
28th Barbara and Patricia convince their mother to allow them to go to the movies
to see the film again like for the hundred thousandth time now early that week Barbara had come down with a bad
cough and was taking cold medicine for a few days so Loretta was like a little reluctant cuz she was like I don't know
you've had a cough it's the winter but eventually They begged and begged and she gave in and let them go probably
just wanted to make them happy of course and they promised they would be home before midnight and she was like okay as
long as you promise oh no then you can go now when she agreed to let the girls go Letta gave them explicit instructions
to be home by 11:45 this gave them enough time to watch two movies that evening so when
11:45 p.m. came and went and no one came home Loretta immediately began to get anxious and sent the two her two other
children Teresa and Joey to the nearest bus stop to wait for them hoping that they maybe just got a late bus yeah but
three buses stopped oh and 15-year-old Barbara and 13-year-old Patricia did not get off those buses and you just think
of one the mother Loretta having to send the kids out to be like and hoping for the best but probably thinking you know
like this isn't right and then those two siblings watching three buses go by just
the increasing worry that was building oh my God I can't even imagine and then these two come home and say unhanded she
they didn't get off and Loretta is just panicking fully I bet so when she learned that the girl still hadn't
returned she immediately called the local police precinct around 12:30 a.m. and sent Teresa and Joey back to the
corner to meet the officer so the kids explained that their sisters were supposed to be home an hour earlier and
hadn't arrived they hadn't heard anything the officer immediately put out an alert for the Sisters but they still
hadn't heard anything a few hours later and so L Loretta called the precinct again to officially report them missing
now although the investigation into Barbara and Patricia's disappearance officially began on the morning of
December 29th it didn't really get into high gear until it hit the Chicago newspapers on Monday morning December
31st oh which also happened to be Patricia's birthday right now it was by then that the investigators had talked
to the staff of the theater they'd gone door Todo speaking to people they'd search neighborhoods garages alleys
abandoned buildings everywhere in between they found no trace of Barbara and Patricia and obviously any child
going missing or multiple children going missing is alarming for the residents of
Chicago but this disappearance started really setting everyone's Minds going because it definitely reminded them of
The Disappearance of three local boys whose bodies were discovered on a roll Road outside the city a little over one
year earlier oh wow it was very similar we actually talked about these boys John
and Anton schler and Robert Peterson in one of our spooky forests episodes oh um
because there's all these stories about the place where they were found um this certain Forest has a lot of activity
yeah that rings a bell it's a really like horrifying story yeah like really horrifying um I mean they were 11 133
and 14 they were found stripped and stacked on top of each other they were bound gagged raped and strangled that's
absolutely horrific the details are really horrifying for that one um and that had already kind of shook everybody
of course but this on top of it is now oh [ __ ] like what's happening is there's
someone out there stealing kids now the first tip finally came in on the afternoon of December 31st when Jack
Franklin who was a security guard with the Admiral Corporation reported to police that he thought he'd seen the
girls a little after 9:30 a.m. on the morning they were reported missing what we will see in this case is so many
people say they saw these girls when they had already been dead I remember that being reported like I've heard this
case told a few times and it's not like one or two people it's a lot lots of people that's interesting it's very it's
weird and do you believe some of them I don't no I mean eyewitnesses to me are very it's it's shaky doy but so many
people yeah that is I it's some kind of phenomenon but I'm also like what is going on here well and I think I like
Styles like girls were all dressing in very similar Styles and had like certain hair styles back then that so maybe that
had something to do with it but it's very strange yeah uh now according to Franklin he said quote it was their
rudess that made him remember them oh I doubt that which they're not described that way yeah I doubt that entirely
Franklin told investigators he had been standing on a sidewalk on Lawrence Avenue Saturday morning and he saw the
two girls pass him and he said one said to the other I wonder where the bus stops yeah and Franklin heard them so he
said you just missed the bus and one of them looked over and said oh shut up and
then the two continued walking towards the bus sh bus stop that doesn't sound like them from how they've been
described exactly and again this was that this was very troubling because he was sure was the girls yeah and then
this is troubling because the three boys that we mentioned who were murdered in October 1955 were last seen in the same
area before their bodies were found a few days later so this was concerning to everybody like oh [ __ ] now the same day
15-year-old dor Dorothy fiser told police she'd seen Barbara and Patricia in the theater that night the evening
that they had gone to the movie so they're thinking they made it to the movie yeah and they she said they had
spoken with briefly together and then they left the theater okay uh she said the girls uh apparently the girls were
also seen that evening around 11:00 p.m. by a bus driver who picked them up at the stop near the movie theater okay um
but they rep but this bus stop driver reported that they got off at Western Avenue which was nowhere near the
grimes's home so and why would they get off there when they promised they'd be home that's the thing now despite all
the witnesses reporting that the girls were alone when they were seen detectives had initially theorized that
the girls had just runoff for quote a date with Sailors that's random sounds random oh but it's it's not cuz when I
first read that I was like H they're 15 and 13 what the [ __ ] are you talking about that came out of nowhere well
apparently a few days earlier Patricia had told friends about a letter she'd received from a sailor acquaintance
saying he would be home for the holidays okay just one month earlier in fact both
girls had come home from a movie with two Sailors they had met at the theater okay so this wasn't entirely out of the
realm of possibility and yes these Sailors are men right and I'm sorry did you say a
year earlier or a month earlier month earlier and they came home with these I think these Sailors brought them home
okay from the theater all right same reaction indeed yes I I said huh you would hope well no
I was going to say you'd hope that they're just like 18 but you know even that's wrong no still 15 and 133 so it's
like oh no I meant the sailors but then I was like yeah they're 15 or that's what I mean like still still doesn't
work unfortunately but yeah that's uh that's that's a whole part of this that's just like oh and did Loretta ever
comment that like she like did she ever confirm that she had like met these Sailors or I think we we find out who
those Sailors are and I think they um they were able to like clear them yeah but not much is known about them but
tips kept coming in and the next day one of their school friends said they had seen barbaraa and Patricia in her
neighborhood on Saturday afternoon and a passenger on the train said they'd seen
them board his Milwaukee bound train on Sunday afternoon so two days after they've gone so now we're seeing
somebody has seen them at the theater somebody has seen them on a bus driver has said they dropped them off somewhere
far away from their home that night then someone else is saying they saw them the
next morning and then a school friend is saying they saw them the next afternoon
and then then somebody else is saying they saw them Sunday okay so now we're seeing them all three days and we have
multiple people saying it right very strange very now according to this passenger on the train that said they
got off um that Milwaukee bound train um he said that the girls got on at the Edison Court station which is just two
stops away from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center okay which further supported their belief that they met up
with Patricia's sailor friend now based on this information detectives began looking into the sailors that had
brought them home the previous month known only as Terry and Larry Terry and Larry now since it was all looking a
little crazy here now with the possibility of you know [ __ ] adult men being involved here the case did get
assigned to a task force led by Chief of detectives Patrick Dy this task force had actually been put together a few
months earlier to investigate the murders of those three local Boys on octo in October 40 officers were
assigned to the case um and they were from the or 40 officers from the Brighton parked Precinct were assigned
to the case got it and several of these were from the juvenile Bureau which was put together to investigate sex crimes
and homicides now meanwhile the students at St Maurice where Patricia attended School were helping out however they
could they stuffed over 15,000 missing Flyers into mailboxes wow um and the clergy and Parish at the
family's church had collected enough money to offer a $1,000 reward for any information for their safe return so the
whole Community is on this it's a huge search now unfortunately weeks passed and it seemed like they had just
vanished wow Loretta Grimes told reporters I'm waiting here for news hoping and praying if someone is holding
them please let the girls call me I'll forgive them from the bottom of my heart if they just let my girls go oh God I
like literally almost tear up hearing that it's just like I can't fathom the depths of her despair here um she
insisted to media and police that the girls didn't have boyfriends and neither one of them were the type to run away
and they never had run away right um especially since it was days before Patricia's birthday and there was a
party planned she was like they wouldn't have run away and this was just it's like obviously this was just something
they did went to the movie saw the Elvis movie came home they did this they had done this a million times n out of the
ordinary it wasn't a sudden thing they wanted to see this movie they'd seen it a million times right reporters even
suggested to her like in which I was like cool oh God reporters like you're saying this to a devastated mother what
do they say they were like oh do you think they ran off to Tennessee to see Elvis at
graceand and it's and okay like I get where the thought is coming from like she really cute joke right fun like not
the time yeah like what the [ __ ] and by January 19th Elvis Presley himself made
a statement wow he released it from his home in graceand and said quote if you're good Presley fans you'll go home
and ease your mother's worries thanks Elvis that's helpful yeah everyone's really helpful here I can see thank you
Mr Presley I don't think you needed to make that statement because right now it's not really looking like they're
holding up somewhere and just worrying their mom right sounds like something happened yeah so like maybe let's not
put it on them yeah you know let's put it out there and say like let's get you girls home yeah if you're holding these
girls let them home spin that a different way yeah spin that a little bit different now horrifically all of
those hopes and prayers fell away just a few days later on January 22nd 1957 when the bodies of Barbara and
Patricia Grimes were discovered off County Line Road in nearby will Springs Illinois and that's almost a month after
they disappeared now that day Leonard Prescott was on his way to the grocery store outside Willow
Springs and was traveling on German CH Church Road when he saw what he thought were mannequins he said he thought they
were just store mannequins never he later told told reporters I didn't have a care in the world my wife told me to
go out and get groceries I was going Mighty slow and I noticed these flesh colored things underneath the railing
along the side of the road so he didn't stop initially but he said he went grocery SHO and then on his way home he
was like it really bothered me the whole way home I couldn't I he was like you know he said he had read about the
missing Grim sisters in the papers because everyone in Chicago and Beyond had at this point and even though he had
convinced himself those were just store mannequins he was like I just need to confirm this because I can't just go
about my day so he and his wife Marie actually went back to the spot that afternoon and when they reached the
embankment Marie Prescott screamed oh God because it was clearly the sight of the nude bodies of two girls lying in
that ditch barely covered by a layer of snow Marie began weeping uncontrollably Leonard had to literally carry her back
to the car the absolutely horrified couple just sat there for a while trying to calm themselves once they were able
to speak they drove down the road only about a mile to the Springs Police Department only about a mile away mile
away now Sergeant John McCay was just getting out of his car like showing up at the station and pres the prescotts
got out of their car and came right up to him and McKay said he was all excited he'd seen two what he thought were
dummies lying alongside the road on German Church Road I told him that I would immediately go over there he
should show me the spot now when they reached the scene McKay confirmed what the prescotts had suspected that these
were the bodies of the of two girls um someone had obviously dumped the bodies of two girls along the side of the road
and he was strongly suspecting that these were Patricia and Barbera Grimes right McKay radioed the sheriff station
and stayed on scene until all the officers arrived now the discovery of the Grim sisters brought a heartbreaking
end to a weeks long search that had been underway right from December 28th but no
questions were answered here like that more questions were asked right the bodies were covered in snow which
indicated they had been there since the last snowfall which was on January 9th oh wow this was January 22nd wow so
theyve been there since January 9th at the very least yeah and they had only become visible when the snow began to
melts a few days earlier now at the time German Church Road was a was not traveled a lot it was in um it was in an
unincorporated town oh okay which makes sense that explains why they hadn't been
discovered earlier no one went down that road it was like a very seldom traveled
Road how [ __ ] up is it though that they were a mile away from the police station and nobody knew just under snow
and like the police right on the side of the road too they were not far off the road there's unfortunately crime scene
photos and they're right off the side of the road and do they I might be getting
ahead of myself here but do they think that they had been there the whole time we'll get to that okay um but like yeah
that we we'll definitely get to that but um but unfortunately there was no no clues on
the scene to what the hell happened here um before the girls were removed from the scene unfortunately Joseph Grimes
their father was taken to the site oh God where he positively identified them as barbar and Patricia and as he did so
he just dropped to the ground and burst into inconsolable tears yeah and I can't
even fathom that scene well you don't hear a lot of like parents being pro brought to the crime scene I think it
was the 50s [ __ ] was just like whing back then holy [ __ ] it was very they don't do that now that's the thing like
that's anyway to have to identify your child but at the crime scene or or wherever they were this the dump scene
yeah like that God I can't imagine yeah now according to Harry gloss a representative from the coroner's office
the bodies had been hastily covered with leaves and grass Barber's body laid across Patricia both girls had three
puncture wounds in the chest and quote that appeared to have been made by an ice pick oh my God uh Barbara's face had
bruises that indicated that she had been beaten uh there were hands bottles and other debris just strewn all around the
area but none of it appeared to be related to the crime scene it was just a place where people trash now the
autopsies were performed a few days later because they had to give the bodies adequate time to thought out
because they had been essentially Frozen there right um but they didn't get a lot
of extra information even then according to all three of the very qualified Pathologists who perform the
examinations both Patricia and Barbara's causes of death were shock and exposure
wow which indicates that they were dumped alive yeah and died from the cold from the
elements but they can't get a lot more than that which is like horrifying because they were stabbed three times in
the chest right one of them at least was beaten and then they were stripped and thrown in the snow right like what the
[ __ ] and did they know how had they been assaulted at all we will get to that okay um they couldn't agree on an exact
time of death for either victim uh all of them agreed that they had likely died the night they went missing okay um and
had been in the ditch covered by fresh snow for quite some time while now in their final report the Pathologists also
noted that the girls quote had not been sexually molested okay and there were quote no signs of external violence on
the bodies that could have caused the death okay now that's so strange yes now ultimately the autopsy results produced
obviously more questions than answers yet again for one thing if the girls had been killed the night they disappeared
how is it possible for so many people to say they'd seen them around the city right like after their disappearance the
answer to that to me feels like eyewitnesses are just notoriously unreliable um these people are probably
just mistaken I'm assuming or they wanted to see these girls and be part of the hell like they wanted to feel like
they saw them and so they were mistakenly thinking but who knows it's still strange even though you know
eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable we all know that we've seen a million times it is strange how many people were
sure they saw them or interacted with them right you know like classmates from school and that's the thing it's not
just strangers it's people who actually knew them so that's it's very weird um but the remarkably
well-preserved state of the bodies did support the theory that they'd been left packed under snow for quite some time
wow now the bigger problem though was that and and no one was going to become aware of this until much later
the bigger problem was that the Pathologists who conducted the examinations had been under strict
orders from Harry gloss who was the representative for the coroner's office that the coroner's office had to
withhold certain sensitive information okay for example the pathologist report and subsequent news reports clearly
stated that neither girl had been sexually molested which was vague enough to be
defensible if challenged they could at least defend the wording of that I guess but it wasn't exactly true okay in fact
when the autopsy was conducted evidence strongly indicated that Barbara had either been
raped or had consensually but she's 15 so so engaged in sexual activity near the time of her death and how are they
how are they able to get away with that because of the wording because I think it's like sexually molested is different
than and they're saying here that they couldn't determine whether it was forcible or consensual okay later it
will come out they were both raped both of them mhm um and then you should know that
right off the bat that like it does come off later that come out later that they
were both raped well and that's interesting because they're also like one was laid across the other just like
in that previous case where the three boys were raped each and laid across each other like it seems to correlate
now so this is why the coroner's office had done that because of that previous case no oh sorry they were trying to Pro
protect Barbara's Chastity and the image that both the girls were pure okay which is
upsetting because it so they're trying to hold back this point so that they are still looked at as like children
deserving of our well sympathy they are no matter what because either way they are not of legal age to consent to
anything how horrifying is it it's very 50 that they had to think that way that the coroner's office literally was like
we should protect their reputations by not telling the public or the press that any sexual assault
happened because it could be looked at as their fault wow everyone love take that in take that
in like and that's the thing I believe the coroner's office believed they were doing something right here they had good
intentions they had good intentions they're by they by no means had bad intentions withholding that but it
didn't help later it actually ended up hurting right and obviously now we know like now it's like this was the ' 50s
obviously so it's like they were looking at it as if we release that people are going to look at them differently and
that's like mindblowing sure they would up and then the other thing is is like people need to know this information if
this is something they need to worry about is their children going out into the streets getting abducted sexually
assaulted and murdered well this hindered the investigation like big time because so we'll get to that for sure
but the discovery was obviously [ __ ] devastating for the Grimes family particularly poor Loretta who learned of
her daughter's Fates that afternoon as she was on her way to St Maurice's Church oh my God she told reporters I
knew they hadn't run away I knew that something had happened to them I kept telling the police that they wouldn't
run away she told this to reporters and then she just ran into one of her neighbors home that's so sad now those
who knew the family knew that the deaths would be particularly awful I mean losing a child never mind too is
Unthinkable but this was the second time that Joseph Loretta had lost a child in
1954 their the couple's 26-year-old daughter Leona had died after a kidney operation oh God so this was I mean
they've gone through the ringer yeah they lost three of their seven children and later Loretta Grimes would be very
outspoken about how she felt largely responsible for the deaths of her daughters because she gave them
permission to go out that night she could have never ever ever had known that happen poor mother I can't even
imagine feeling that way and she doesn't deserve to feel that she did not deserve
to feel that way she didn't do anything wrong or out of the ordinary especially given the time period in the 50s kids
were going those that 11 13 and 14-year-old the case before this one yeah they were out at 9:30 at night by
themselves it was the the way it was it was just kids got on buses and just came
home and this wasn't even like we've said it already but and they' done that a million times this in the 50s
especially going to the movies going to a diner and playing something on theuk box was the thing to do kids did it all
the time parents let them do it this was not strange that mother did nothing [ __ ] wrong hate that she had to live
with that guilt that's the thing and it's like she's sending them to a public place that's safe that she and together
yeah and like she should have been able to send her kids out to go watch a movie
I just feel so awful for her cuz it's like she did not not deserve to have that guilt but you can understand I'm
sure as a mom why she did absolutely and that's what kills me I'm like I just wish I could like I feel like I'm like
sorry Loretta I know but since the discovery of Barbara and Patricia Grimes was the second set of children like we
talked about found brutally murdered in the Chicago area right many in the press
and public were worried that there was a serial killer of foot abducting and killing children sounds like it in both
cases the victim's bodies have been found nude in or near a forested air and on top of each other M investigators
belied the inclement weather had helped the killer Lure the victims and all had been like it was you know it was rainy
or snowy out so they could be like oh you need a ride like that's easy um and all had last been seen headed to a movie
theater oh the three boys were also they were on their way to a movie theater too
they were going to see like um it was like Disney's like live lion movie or something like that that was out that
year that's strange that they were all head to movies now because of all this and I get it detectives vehemently
pursued the case with the possibility that all five murders could somehow be linked and I get that oh 100% I mean the
the all the factors line up now once the bodies were removed from the scene a team of more than 70 men began searching
the area for any clues that could lead to the killer they combed that area all along Devil's Creek where the girls were
discovered and the investigators hope to find anything any physical evidence like
clothing anything in that debris garbage that they could link to anybody but nothing nothing now at the same time
another team was starting to dig into the leads pouring pouring into the police they started putting together a
possible suspect list and they started with 53-year-old self-described psychic Walter CR he was top of the list because
a week earlier he had called the police with an anonymous tip saying the girls would be found in Santa Fe Park okay he
refused to give his name when he called but he said said he quote unquote dreamed of seeing the bodies there okay
police were able to trace the number back to CR obviously and he immediately became their number one suspect oh but
he passed two polygraph test and tests and after being interviewed for hours and hours it was determined he was had
no involvement in the case now just two days after detectives abandoned that investigation another suspect Edward
Benny Bedwell came into view now according to a cab driver who had seen the girls pictures in the newspaper he'd
seen Barbara and Patricia on the morning of December 30th in the company of two men at the DNL restaurant in Chicago
Skid Row neighborhood okay now although he didn't know their names the cab driver recognized one of the men who he
described as having Elvis Presley sideburns and a ducktail haircut now investigator spoke to the
owners of the DNL restaurant John and mini duros who confirmed the cab driver story
and identified the one who looked like Elvis as Benny Bedwell and that would have meant that they spent two days with
him yes okay now um she they confirmed that this was Benny Bedwell because the two the couple who owned the restaurant
said that they had actually occasionally hired him to wash dishes so they knew him well yeah so according to mini duros
the group so it was Benny who they are saying was Patricia and Barbara Grimes and one other man okay together she said
the group had come into the restaurant early that morning and sat in a booth and she told investigators the older of
the two girls was in bad shape she looked sick or sick or drugged and she had been sick yeah she had been sick uh
eventually they all went outside where she saw the two men try to get the girls into a car but the taller girl came back
into the booth and put her head on the table so when the others came back and tried to get the girl back outside
Minnie told them to leave her alone but but the three persisted and Minnie became distracted by another customer
and when she looked back at the table she saw the man she identified as Benny Bedwell escorting the girl out of the
restaurant okay according to duros the group came back later that afternoon and the taller girl whom she believed to be
Barbara was quote carrying on with Benny so she asked them all to leave okay now
by the time investigators became aware of Benny Bedwell there was already three law enforcement agencies pursuing this
case together but not together independent of one another okay Chicago Police had taken
the initial missing persons report Cook County Sheriff's Department discovered the bodies and the FBI was following up
on the handful of Ransom demands that the family family had received since the girls went missing people are so
disgusting because people are and always will be absolute [ __ ] garbage truly we're garbage everybody we are garbage
species garbage now as is often the case the famous ego game becomes a problem and
each agency was reluctant to share information with the others and actively withheld [ __ ] from each other it's like
guys we all have a common cause here let's figure out what happened to these two children seriously like shake your
dicks around later like there's two children who were [ __ ] raped and murdered and you can't get your [ __ ]
together to give some information to another agency cuz they might get credit for it yeah like I don't know any of
your names that's the I don't know any of your names except the ones that actually did the work so do the work and
we'll know your names for it but if you're holding [ __ ] we're not going to know [ __ ] exactly in fact on January
24th when Sheriff's Department officers arrested Benny Bedwell Chicago Police investigators complained to the press
that quote they were not informed of the arrest and said it violated a pledge of
cooperation among the various law enforcement agencies so they didn't even tell the other agencies that they
arrested the guy well it's like that's exciting news like hey we might have this guy here and these the other
agencies are are wasting time like pursuing others when you got guy right tail is old as [ __ ] time
imagine not being able to put your egos aside for the sake of solving the abductions possible rape and murders of
two young girls like imagine that no so the sheriff's officers eventually tracked Bedwell to the starer theater a
former burlesque theater turned Movie House and downtown Chicago interesting it ran double features all day and night
the Chicago Police it turned out were right to have complained because rather than fill the other law enforcement
agencies in on the arrest a spokesperson for the sheriff's office just went to the pr press to talk about having a cust
a suspect in custody going to the press and being like look we did it instead of
telling the other agencies first right now according to their report 21y old Bedwell had grown up in Central Illinois
and taken a d a job with a traveling circus when he was 18 oh wow but he had recently returned to Chicago around the
area after a very short stint with the military and at the time of his arrest he was living at the McCoy Hotel okay
now reporters immediately jumped on the story and started digging in to find more about Benny Bedwell less than 24
hours after he was arrested they had found his mother Ethel Bedwell Bradberry who was more than happy to talk about
her son she was 16 when she became the sixth wife to John Bedwell a man who is 30 years older than she was holy [ __ ]
she gave birth to John Jr not long after they were married and six years later she had Benny Bedwell damn as far as his
mother was concerned Benny was quote a lazy shiftless bum just a big lazy boy who didn't like to work gross she didn't
know anything about her son's involvement in the case of the missing Grim sisters but she did tell reporters
quote on several occasions Benny had mentioned having a new girlfriend now in custody Benny insist
he had never even met the Grimes sisters and certainly didn't kill them he did however admit to being at the DNL
restaurant on the evening he was spotted there and he said he was with a friend and two girls now according to Bedwell
they were not the Grim sisters he said he had met the two girls and their male companion at the movies that day and the
two had gone to a bar near the theater left when the bartender refused to serve the two underage girls because he loves
under girls gross uh after that they went to another bar nearby where they each had three drinks and he said we
were only in there a little while when the girls went to the washroom and he said when they came out of the washroom
they ducked us we saw them leave and the other guy said let's follow them but he
said that he refused and he claimed that the girls like they got away and he said
they ran into the girls a few days later and they ignored him I bet so now the weird story Benny
well the problem with this was this wasn't the first statement Benny gave to police this was the second one the
initial statement he gave he claimed he had been out that day with friends that he referred to as Louie and Frank he
said they met up with the girls he identified as being the Grim sisters okay so first he knows them and then he
doesn't according to Benny he was driving the car and the girls were in the back with his friends and he heard
quote the sound of scuffling and he looked back to find the two girls were dead that's his first statement so he's
D I want you to Picture This he's driving a car they in the back seat he hears a little bit of scuffling he looks
back they're dead doubt it Benny then said the men strip the girl's clothing off and forced him to drive out to
German Church Road where they dumped the bodies when asked why he told that first
story if it wasn't true Benny said I thought you would let me go if I told you that I thought you would let me go
if I told you I was an accessory to murder yeah let let's think about that crit seems legit let's let's do some
critical thinking there Benny boy think he knows how to do that now while the multiple statements from Benny didn't
make him look uh any less suspicious the second story he told police about meeting the girls at a theater who
weren't the grand the grand sisters that was eventually corroborated by the two young women who were part of the story
apparently whose names Benny said he had forgotten at the time their names were Irene Dean and Carol
King and the other man in the group was Richard witm so boom Alibi okay like the guy came forward and
was like yep the girls were like yep it was us do we believe them so he had already told multiple stories which was
a red flag obviously yeah and they tried to cooporate they were like that's that's nice but let's corroborate this
story even further so they went to the owners of the DNL restaurant and were like were were these the girls like do
you recognize these girls the owners of the DNL restaurant swore that Dean and King were not the girls that they had
seen any with I wonder if somebody intimidated those girls this was further suspect because there were many other
Witnesses who told investigators they had also seen Barbara and Patricia Grimes with Benny on or around the time
they went missing oh yeah so there you go now in fact between the night they went missing in the week that followed
no less than eight Witnesses claimed to have seen the girls in the company of two men each including in their
statement a fact or detail that would not have been known to the public okay a [ __ ] like there you go like for
example a waitress at Mount pendos restaurant told detective she'd seen the girls in the restaurant with two men and
as they were leaving she heard one of the girls refer to the other as Petey which was Patricia's family nickname oh
wow also most of the witnesses indicated or at least implied that the girls looked uncomfortable and looked like
they were not exactly with these men SL pigs like arily right things got more complicated on December 28th the day
after statements were taken from Whitten Meer Dean and King because now Benny Bedwell made another statement early
that morning Chicago police arrested a guy named William Willingham Jr who was a known associate of bedw Wells they'd
picked up on a disorderly contuct charge okay when they showed Willingham a photo
of Benny Bedwell he admitted knowing Benny but strenuously denied having anything to do with Grimes murders and
told police I don't know anything about this and I never went out with those girls and it's like oh that sounds a
little Su think th do protest too much correct but when Benny was informed about willingham's arrest he recanted
his previous story about being ditched by the girls at the movies okay that one and returned to another version of his
initial statement that included the Grim sisters right now according to Benny now
he'd met both girls Patricia and and Barbara Grimes on the evening of January 7th nope at Harold's Harold's club and
they were in the presence of a man he referred to as Frank Benny claimed they had a few drinks at the club and then
got a room at the Crest Hotel there he said he quote went to bed with Patricia with FR and Frank with
Barbara Benny claimed all four of them spent several days drinking and driving and stopping at random bars and Friends
Apartments where they kept drinking heavily finally on the 11th or 12th they stopped for gas and to get some lunch
with the girls and the girls went to use the bathroom at a gas station uhhuh when
they got back both men indicated they wanted to find a place to have sex but both the girls refused and he said that
they both both the men got violent okay in a recorded confession Benny told Sheriff Joseph lman I hit Patricia
harder than I was aiming to on the chin okay both men he said knocked both girl girls unconscious like beat them
unconscious and he's one of these men him and Frank Frank yes they immediately thought they had killed the girls so
they drove them up to the little used German Church Road stripped them of their clothing and dumped them behind
the guardrail the sheriff asked whether they knew the girls were dead or not and
Benny said they didn't move anyway I didn't know the girls were dead I figured they would come too and go for
help I didn't do it intentionally well and then that makes sense because they believed that they had died of exposure
so he beat them unconscious and then left them there and that because I was say in my head I was like they died of
exposure but like did they try to get home somehow or well don't worry we'll get through we'll talk about that so
Benny said it wasn't until several days after this that he read about the Grim sisters in the paper and realized that
it was them he claimed neither one of them had mentioned running away from home and never mentioned they were being
looked for they also said he also said he only met Frank a couple of times didn't know his last name Benny said
when they got back to the city after this whole thing they departed from each other and had he hadn't seen Frank since
okay now his statement was read back to him for clarification and Benny identified Barbara and Patricia Grimes
from photographs presented to him by the sheriffs uh confirming they were the girls he'd been with then with his
statement having been taken Benny guided investigators on a 50m tour of where he
and Frank had taken the girls ending at the site on German Church Road where the
bodies were found okay now along the way hundreds if not thousands watched and followed this whole ordeal the Press
referred to this whole thing as quote a tragic circus parade at high speed which is chilling yeah so Sheriff
lman was a immediately convinced of Benny's guilt particularly because it seemed to be in line with what they've
learned from Witnesses in the days prior and just the fact that he's told about 40 different stories in fact one of the
witnesses who claimed to have seen the girls after they disappeared appeared was Leonard was an employee at a service
station not far from where the girl's bodies was discovered according to was all four had stopped at the gas station
in early January he couldn't be certain of the date and the girls asked to use the restroom boom as they were leaving
was claimed the girl he identified as Barbara quote gave him a strange look which he interpreted as her desire not
to get back in the car oh no I love that not not a one person has stepped in to be like girl are you okay well that's
the thing are you all right is everything okay all these adults are like yeah it looked like they were being
abducted it was wild and it's like I don't know [ __ ] faces why don't you go ask that child if they're okay what the
[ __ ] is wrong with you and it's like clearly they looked young enough that you would go ask them because at one
place they weren't served cuz they looked so young it's never a bad thing to just be like you all right yeah do
you need help yeah like what the [ __ ] dude especially when they're with these like two older men come come on guys wow
now there were some people though who didn't really buy Benny's confession he had lied a lot well and like what number
confession is this and he had told a lot of stories by this point and although some of his stories seemed like it was
being confirmed by Witnesses and [ __ ] there was a lot that didn't make a lot of sense well and there is like you know
confirmation like there's one big thing so Benny had claimed both there's a couple of big things actually Benny had
claimed both girls ate hot dogs for lunch at the service station okay the autopsy said nope there were no hot dogs
in their stomachs in fact there was nothing recent in their stomachs interesting both girls had light
bruising on their faces but not enough to corroborate a beating that would knock them
unconscious okay like Benny had described he described it as very violent yeah and he said when they dump
when they dumped those girls thought they he had killed them right also did you remember the puncture wounds in the
chest I was just about to ask where did he never mentioned those no where did those come from
Benny never mentioned this huh the Press immediately pointed out all of this and
his confession was now being questioned by everyone but there are so many things
that he did know that do make sense well there's also another problem here because the biggest issue that everyone
had with his confession was that Benny claimed to have engaged in repeated sexual intercourse with Patricia but
according to the autopsy report that everyone knew about neither girl was quote sexually experienced meaning
neither had engaged with in sexual intercourse because remember they were withholding that information right so
now the public is hearing this confession involving that and they're saying well it can't be true but it is
in fact when reporters asked one of the Pathologists whether the girls were chased gross he refused to answer the
question because again remember the coroners are being told you're not allowed to say it right he said the
question and his answer was that that's a question of morals not science so he was like I'm not answering that like I'm
not telling you whether these girls are chased that's not that's like opinion that's not science I'm here to talk
about science like let's not put that in your story [ __ ] in truth his refusal again was the direct results of being
under strict orders from the coroner's office to protect their reputation and ant not answer those questions Loretta
Grimes on the other hand wasted no time reinforcing what the autopsy had included she said our girls came from a
good home and were brought up in religious surroundings he's not right she said of Benny Bedwell and she
insisted that he was lying she said I want to see my girl's clothing before I believe anything even then I won't
believe what Bedwell says about their being in bars yeah which I don't blame her no of course not more than any of
the other inconsistencies in Benny's confession which I think the puncture wounds are huge inconsistency he never
mentioned them and I think if you stabbed the girls three times with an ice picky she would mention that in your
confession did he head back to the car though and Frank did that I don't know to ensure that they were dead I don't
know but his insistence that he engaged in sex with one or both of these girls was held up by the press the family and
many others as evidence that he was lying after all the autopsy report indicated that had not happened so there
was no way he could be telling the truth unfortunately it would be many years before anyone learned that the coroner's
office had out of some misguided sense of decency com basically conspired to suppress certain results to protect yeah
them their innocence this is so and in truth several members of the sheriff's department had seen the autopsy slides
and years later would confirm like I said that both girls had been sexually assaulted before their deaths right now
despite the many flaws in the case lman remained convinced of Benny bedwell's guilt I'm kind of convinced I'm not
you're not okay and they he accepted the confession and he booked the man on murder charges and intended to see the
case through to trial so the announcement of Benny bedwell's confession and the impending indictment
brought some comfort to the people of Chicago yeah particularly those who had been increasingly anxious over the
rising you know instances of children being abducted and raped and murdered in the city and the surrounding areas but
for others Benny seemed like a scapegoat in the case that multiple law enforcement agencies had failed to solve
okay Benny's pro bono lawyer David Bradshaw told reporters the boy in this case is wholly illiterate doesn't
understand what's going on and has found himself the main object in a case of Nationwide interest Loretta Grimes
agreed really telling reporters he's changed his story so many times who wouldn't he's had no sleep and nothing
to eat she's a consumate mama yeah she really is she's literally like The Boy hasn't had anything to eat and he hasn't
slept he's going to say whatever like she's just looking at it this is a 21-year-old like Loretta Loretta Grimes
is a a mama there like that's my girl she really is but she didn't AG she did not agree she did not think that this
was the guy all right well I respect how she whatever she thinks cuz you also have to think like there's some mama in
inct happening there now Benny's lawyer David Bradshaw believed investigators were under intense pressure to solve
this case obviously and since Benny was their only real suspect they pursued him
despite all the contradictions in his confession and it's like okay I understand pursuing him like based some
things he was saying but don't do it exclusively at the expense of finding other people I think it reminds me of
something uh the West Memphis 3 it reminds me of um like when they just went forward with Jesse muscelli even
though there was several contradictions in his confession they just corrected them that confession is one of the
saddest things you will ever hear about in your life now also Bradshaw believed his client was being scapegoated because
the public and many in law enforcement continued to cling to the Grim sister's purity right and they refused to believe
that the two teenagers had gone anywhere near skid R bars and theaters and that like something could have happened yeah
so they he was like I think he's just being put up here as like the easy way to understand all of this and at that
point his lawyer also didn't know about the truth it's like yeah so the more investigators dug into Benny's Story the
less likely it seemed he was telling the truth William Willingham the friend that
had been arrested when he was y um had told investigators that he had gone out drinking with Benny around the time the
girls went missing and that he swore the girls were with her um the the girls that they were with were Irene Dean and
Carol King and the results of his polygraph test indicated he was telling the truth oh interesting also when Dean
and King were shown photos of Benny Bedwell and William Willington yeah they again identified them as the men they
had been out with at the DNL restaurant among other places so they were like that was us that's interesting a
Coroner's in Quest began on January 30th 1957 and much of what was learned did little to support Benny's confession it
was determined that the girls had most likely been abducted shortly after they left the movie theater a little after
11:30 p.m. at that time Benny Bedwell was known to have been at work oh the inquest also demonstrated the extent to
which so many involved in the case were committed to protecting the quote unquote innocence of Barbara and
Patricia uhhuh at one point while the girl's school friend Dorothy Wier was testifying that she saw both of them
buying popcorn in a candy bar at the movie Loretta jumped up out of her chair and started calling the girl a liar
because she said she had only given them money for movies and she said she insisted that she gave her money for the
bus ride the ticket for the movies and one popcorn so because of how sensitive everything was just because this school
friend had said that these girls had an additional 30 cents many interpreted it as that they must
have been dishonest or they' done something immoral to get that 30 cents wow so that's why Loretta jumped up and
was like no no no no no no like this is No I gave them this amount but that's how ridiculous it had gotten that's
insane now after three days of testimony Betty Bedwell once again recanted his 14-page confession saying he had only
confessed because he was threatened and beaten by police oh wow in fact he again
said he had never met or seen the Grim sisters and only knew the case through the newspapers Benny had so many had
told so many conflicting stories by this point that it would have been reasonable
for anyone to be skeptical of this latest one at that point I mean come on but now the in the coroner's
inquest that was starting to show that he was probably innocent he was probably like innocent of this I should say well
the inquest was in its Third Day the lab and toxicology reports came back and found that both girls most likely died
December 28th the night they disappeared wow also there was no alcohol in either
of the girls systems and the contents of their stomachs turned up particles of fish and potatoes on those later reports
not hot dogs okay um Bedwell had only claimed that they had eaten hot dogs and that was in January and do you have any
idea if Loretta said like they had fish and potato I'm assuming that's what they
had for dinner I didn't see it in any of the things but because they weren't concerned by it it makes sense that
that's what they had for din they were going to a later movie yeah and they that movie was later and they weren't
concerned about these they weren't using it as part of the investigation so I'm assuming that was from home it also just
sounds like a family day it does now a few days later on February 6th a baale bondsman named Morris Brown put up the
$20,000 bail for bedwell's release he believed him innocent so Benny was released from custody wow now when Benny
Bedwell got out of jail and was seemingly EX exonerated by the findings of the autopsy in the coroners in
inquest investigators were just back to square one square square one yeah detectives and deputies from the Chicago
Police Department and Cook County Sheriff's Department returned to German Church Road and the theater where the
girls had gone the night they disappeared but they couldn't find anything else to help them investigators
Revisited their previous suspects they found a couple that seemed promising at some point but then they would go
nowhere the most promising of the suspects was 17-year-old Matt Max flee um there's little known about Max flee
but he was picked up by police shortly after the bodies were discovered and was convinced by captain Ralph [ __ ] to take
a polygraph test according to author Troy Taylor Max failed the polygraph exam and confessed to the murders but
quote because the test was illegal and inadmissible the police were forced to let him go because he was coerced into
taking it yeah gotcha now as the month and years went by there would be other suspects people would confess to it
again none of them were strong enough to get a conviction in late 1962 Alfred Lawless an Illinois prisoner about to be
released from jail on a drunk and disorderly charge claimed that he had killed the Grimes sisters quote six
years ago today I killed Barbara and Patricia Grimes and I've been running what ever since he told so according to
him he had met the girls at the theater The Night They disappeared and he murdered them a few hours later he said
I had to tell somebody about the murders I'm scared that if I didn't I might do the same thing again to other innocent
girls okay but like Benny's confession years before his story was surprisingly detailed but all the information he
provided no matter how small the detail had been reported by the Press so there you go so investigators were like I
don't know about that those delts only grew when Lawless began confessing to other crimes including the murder of a
man in Jamestown Kentucky 15 years earlier in which Lawless got many of the details wrong so I think he was just
going through off the deep end in fact when they started to take a closer look at his story there were more than a few
important discrepancies and investigators were like no he's not a viable suspect now in time unfortunately the
leads began to dry up and slowly but surely it seems like the story kind of disappeared first from the Press then
from The public's memory and after years of inaction the case had gone cold and was shelv by all law enforcement um
agencies that's awful now the Grim sisters cold Cas case had sat on a shelf for more than 50 years when it was
rediscovered by a retired West police officer Ray Johnson let's go in 2010 Johnson began going over old newspaper
articles and revie viewing the evidence in the case uh for a book he hoped to write he told reporters I thought nobody
should give up on this case and two years into his research he contact he was contacted by by a woman who claimed
she had been with Barbara and Patricia the night they disappeared but she was too scared to go to the police in 1957
to tell them what she knew according to this Anonymous woman she left the theater with the sisters when they were
offered and accepted a ride from a man in his early 20s but this woman became uncomfortable and had jumped out of the
car when it slowed down and left the sisters in the car oh now eventually Johnson came across a report from
Loretta grime about one of the anonymous calls she received about the time the girls went missing cuz remember people
have always been and will always be [ __ ] garbage so she was getting a ton of Anonymous phone calls while she was
grieving her children missing again garbage we're garbage like what goes through people's heads now unlike the
previous Ransom calls in harassment this caller seemed to know things about the case that people other people didn't he
claimed quote he was the one who who undressed the girl oh and then he hung up the phone that poor [ __ ] woman
that's so sick a little over a year later Loretta received another call from an anonymous man who told her he quote
got away with another one and he said this time the police would not be able to pin this one on Benny
Bedwell the next day after this call police found the decapitated body of 15-year-old Bonnie Lee Scott in nearby
Addison oh my whole entire body only about 3 miles from where Barbara and Patricia his bodies were discovered oh
that mhm nope eventually police arrested 23-year-old Charles's mquest for that murder and he quickly confessed he said
I'm sorry about it all I don't care what happens to me he was convicted of the murder of Scott but only served 8 years
in prison due to what he says were his connections to the Chicago machine wow the murder of Bonnie Lee
Scott bears many similarities to the Grim sister's case but there's no real connection that they could pull on
mquest had connections to Sheldon teller who had been one of the lead investigators on the Grimes case but Jon
that retired detective that was looking into this case and found all this he believed that Charles mquest could be
the murderer in the Grimes case but teller who he was connected to who was the lead investigator on the Grimes case
had connections to the Chicago machine and helped Quest skirt the charges that's also why he got such a light
sentence for the other murder and got away with [ __ ] wow is that is the machine like the mob the mob yeah it now
unfortunately Charles mquest died in 2010 oh how strange that was the same year that the author decided yeah wow
but at the time of his arrest he was considered a strong suspect in the crimes case and Johnson believes he
could very well be the man who killed Barbara and Patricia Grimes we'll never know as of now the case remains open and
Johnson hopes new information can be found to link mquest definitively to the case and finally solve the heartbreaking
murders of Patricia and Barbara Grimes I think Charles mquest is the guy really I
think he's the guy wow and unfortunately we're not going to be able to fully get the justice and maybe
someday you never know and unfortunately Loretta Grimes has passed away at this point say so but it's like but they I'm
sure maybe they have live living siblings or six like I'm hoping something can I just want this family to
have like the closure yeah you know and I really do believe I think the fact that this kind of [ __ ] happens these are
a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old girl both abducted from movie theater found naked raped stabbed beaten and murdered
on the side of the road and people are calling this family and pranking them it's look in the [ __ ] mirror what the
[ __ ] is wrong with you a a laundry list of things all I can hope is that Karma
like just bites them in the ass I hope Karma chews on their ass like Jesus people are
so [ __ ] anytime I hear about that [ __ ] I'm like you got to be especially when
it's a child involved I'm like the you have to be truly deranged like you have to be a deranged just feral [ __ ]
animal to do that [ __ ] like it makes me so angry it's just you can't even fathom
it and that these people going through what they went through and her having that guilt that she was living with that
she did not deserve to have but she's a mother that guilt she had and to be having to deal with [ __ ] pigs calling
her and pranking her and saying disgusting saying disgusting [ __ ] like man you deserve what you get Society man
but it's rough I think Charles mquest is a great great suspect for this I really
do believe he is the fact that he got 8 years for decapitating a young girl that
poor girl his connection imagine being in the in the trial or in the courtroom for sentencing and you find out the man
that decapitated your child gets 8 years I and he's 23 I mean that's nothing yeah
nothing yeah going to be a young guy just walking out of there and I'd be interested to see or to hear I would
love to follow what the rest of his life was there's no way that man stopped what
he was doing yeah so it's like somebody needs to and I'm hoping who knows maybe Johnson there is working on it is
piecing together what that guy was doing because I would love to find out and start digging into what his life was
after that I mean he lived until 2010 yeah so I would like to to know what happened there and I hope that
somebody's looking into it and I'm like can I help cuz it would you would imagine that he would have gotten out of
jail sometime in like the late 60s early 70s I think so to be honest I'm probably
going to start trying to dig into this guy's life because it's bothering me and I'm like and I know this like retired
police detective is probably on that [ __ ] but I'm like I'm I'm just going to do this for my own personal well-being
because I need to [ __ ] know what this guy was doing yeah I mean maybe we can do like some kind of followup yeah I
would love to if and who knows if you'll find enough ify yeah keep us updated man
I know I'm like I'm I'm like you know what please Ray Johnson please let me know what the [ __ ] is going on if you're
listening let's get together let's squat up right uh but yeah this is a horrific
horrific tale yeah that's really devastating it doesn't have the ending that you're really looking for but it's
got something at the end that you feel like there's there's something to work with yeah what an interesting case all
around though just all the eyewitness es afterwards and then the many stories and
the people that were so convinced that they saw Benny with him perhaps yeah it's really it's [ __ ]
up it is it's really [ __ ] up and I hope the Grimes family was able to to move past it I not move past it but you
know move forward yeah yeah well with that we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep
it I got nothing yeah don't don't be this don't call people who are going through through things and prank them
you pieces of [ __ ] there you go don't keep it that weird don't do [Music] that

On the evening of December 28, 1956, fifteen-year-old Barbara Grimes and her thirteen-year-old sister, Patricia, left their home in Chicago, Illinois headed for a movie theater in Brighton Park to see the latest Elvis Presley film. When the girls failed to return home that evening as expected, their mother sent the two other siblings to wait for them at the closest bus station, but when they returned later without Barbara and Patricia, she became anxious and began calling their friends, before eventually phoning the police. Three weeks later, Barbara and Patricia’s bodies were discovered on the side of a rural road by a construction worker in Willow Springs, about an hour outside Chicago.

The murder of the Grimes sisters and the investigation that followed remains one of Chicago’s most notorious cold cases and one of the most costly and labor-intensive searches in the state’s history.

Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me The Axe Podcast for research assistance!

References Chicago Tribune. 1957. "Suspect's mom says he's lazy, shiftless bum." Chcago Tribune, January 25: 3. —. 1957. "Charged with murder of Grimes girls." Chicago Tribune, January 28: 1. —. 1957. "Dsicloses how 2 girls ditched him and companion in theater." Chicago Tribune, January 27: 1. —. 1957. "High points of the news." Chicago Tribune, February 3: 8. —. 1957. "'I knew it!' sobs mother." Chicago Tribune, 01 23: 1. —. 1957. "Nude bodies thrown beside country road." Chicago Tribune, January 23: 1. —. 1957. "Rule out sex attack, strangling theories." Chicago Tribune, January 24: 1. —. 1958. "Slayer of girl, 15, hopes he gets chair." Chicago Tribune, November 19: 1. —. 1957. "Widen search for 2 young sisters missing four days." Chicago Tribune, January 1: 5. —. 1956. "Young sisters reported seen in two places." Chicago Tribune, December 31: 6. Gowran, Clay. 1957. "Re-enacts crime, and shows how he dumped two in ditch." Chicago Tribune, January 28: 1. Lowry, Shirley. 1957. "Lost girls' mother keeps brave." Chicago Tribune, January 11: 3. McGill, Nancy. 1957. "Mom denies Skid Row tale." Chicago Tribune, Janaury 28: 6. Milwaukee Journal. 1957. "Grimes case tiff costs job." Milwaukee Journal, February 16. Nix, Naomi. 2013. "1950s case gets new look from pro, amateurs." Chicago Tribune, 30 May: 1. Taylor, Troy. 2015. The Two Lost Girls: The Mystery of the Grimes Sisters. Jacksonville, IL: Whitechapel Press. United Press. 1957. "Bennie admits part in crime." Daily Chronicle, January 28: 1. —. 1957. "New suspect is arrested." Daily Chronicle, January 24: 1. —. 1957. "Two teen-aged girls killed." Daily Chronicle, Janaury 23: 1. UWIRE. 2019. "'Chicago History Cop' making headway in Grimes sisters' murder case." UWIRE, October 25.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the unsolved murder of sisters Barbara and Patricia Grimes, highlighting the investigation and its impact on their family.

Key points

A Mother's Guilt. The story reveals the emotional burden carried by the girls' mother, Loretta.
Elvis Fans. Barbara and Patricia were devoted Elvis fans, eagerly awaiting his film release.
Eyewitness Accounts. Multiple witnesses reported seeing the girls after they went missing, raising questions.
Community Search Efforts. The local community rallied together, distributing 15,000 flyers and offering a reward for information.
Autopsy Findings. The autopsies revealed shocking details about the girls' deaths, raising more questions than answers.
Loretta Grimes' Heartbreak. Loretta Grimes learned of her daughters' fates, feeling guilt over their disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Wow, that's a lot of kids!

Ash reacts to the Grimes family's size.

5:02WatchNov 28, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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