The Starved Rock Murders /// Part 1 /// 736 | Forensic Files

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$9.99 Ashley For the Love of [Music] [Music] home [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
as always is a man who would like to be your Valentine here is the captain yeah pucker up buttercup it's it's good to be
seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend this week we are very happy to be
featuring Devil's paint Box by the hardworking Brewers over at Tangled Roots Brewing Company Devil's paint box
is a West Coast style IPA it's bitter with some very good Citrus hop flavor much like parts of Devil's paint box of
maias State Park which is described as a shock of color this beer pours to a striking burnt orange in a glass this
medium bodied IPA burst with Juicy Citrus notes like lime and grapefruit tangle Roots Brewing says it's just
devish refreshing garage gr three and 3/4 bottle caps out of five and let's give some thanks and praise to our
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all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music]
crime [Music] the murders at Starved Rock State Park were quickly dubbed the crime of the
century by locals three innocent prominent women were coralled and murdered in a State Park in
Illinois the murders were horrifying the news was National and portions of the park were
closed the murders had to be the work of a sex crazed maniac and thus an arrest should be
imminent but the triple homicide investigation was a complicated one the case to make an arrest was going
to be a slow and tedious process the clues were convoluted the suspects all seemed to know one another
and the lack of a good eyewitness was surprising the ones that got it right from the beginning were those local
folks who called the Starved Rock murders the crime of the century because because while several other cases have
been titled the same this case just like those other ones is still heavily discussed and debated to this very day
this is true crime garage and this is the Starved Rock [Music] [Music] murders [Music]
the Starved Rock State Park is a gorgeous State Park located in laau County Illinois the park is
characterized by and known for the many Canyons within the park over 2600 Acres now we will be going back in time to
1960 for this week's case and we should note that the park has grown considerably over those decades so back
in 1960 not quite 2600 Acres but still a very large State Park we will be discussing the St Louis Canyon that is
inside of this beautiful Park specifically in these episodes the park is situated along the South Bank of the
Illinois River Lal County location Think Central North Illinois so this is about
a an hour and 40 minute drive west of Chicago starv rock gets over 2 million visitors annually and this is the most
visited state park in the state of Illinois the Land of Lincoln also known as the Prairie State we mentioned the
many Canyons these are exposed rock Canyons the park is also known for its unique especially to this area of the
country its unique topography and unfortunately the park is also Al known for its violent history that's right
tragedy is an old story to Starved Rock State Park the park is steeped in American Indian lore and takes its name
from a legend over 250 years old now according to that Legend a band of Illinois Indians was forced to the top
of a huge Rock by some Ottawa Braves this is way back in 1767 and the Illinois Indians starved
there ever since then the spot was known as Starved Rock Legend also says that Starved Rock was the place where an
American Indian princess and her lover beix were attacked by an unfriendly tribe when the Warriors killed beix and
threatened to take the princess captive she jumped 140 feet to her death into the Illinois River the Starved Rock
murders is just one of the most infamous homicide cases in the state's history history that along with the Hendrick
family murders the Lane Bryant shootings and serial killer John Wayne gasy amongst others all of those true crime
stories have been covered here on True Crime garage so no stranger to tragedy Starved Rock State Park where three
prominent Chicago area women were found murdered on Wednesday March 16th 1960 in the late 19th century Parkland
Round starv Rock was developed as a vac Resort the resort was later acquired by the state in
1911 for a state park which of course it remains today the area around The Rock was designated a National Historic
Landmark in 1960 which is oddly enough the same year as the murders that we will be discussing in the garage so now
Captain we go back in time to 1960 and we will start our timeline off on Monday March 14th
1960 we have three women three very good friends this is Francis Murphy she is 47
years old we have Mildred linquist she's 50 and lilianne oding who is 50 as well
these friends are the wives of three prominent Chicago area businessmen at times they are also referred to as the
three Riverside matrons all were mothers and two of them were grandmothers the three friends are going to the Starved
Rock Lodge for a 4-day trip to Starved Rock State Park the three were looking forward to hiking the manyi trails
sightseeing they were interested in bird watching and photography now keep in mind this is mid March in the northern
part of Illinois so when they get the starv rock there's a decent amount of snow on the ground Mrs Francis Murphy
Mrs Mildred linquist and Mrs Lily and oding the three had driven the 90 miles from Chicago to the picturesque Starved
Rock the morning of Monday March 14th arriving in time for lunch the lodge has a dining area so they checked into their
rooms and then sat down together for lunch after eating they put on their hiking clothes and went for a long walk
in the snow and as The Story Goes they are never seen alive again let's dive a little bit more into the background here
yes and this is a very important part of this true crime story unfortunately Lilian oding her husband George had had
some health complications for months before the trip Lilian had watched over her husband George who had suffered a
heart attack and from my understanding Captain this would be about four months before their trip so her friends Mildred
and Francis believe that lilan deserved some rest and relaxation to get away for
a little bit but before lilan left George's side these are very dedicated husband and wife here she's been caring
for him for months now she made her husband promise to her look while I'm gone you've got to take it easy you got
to take care of yourself and you have to promise me to answer the phone because I'm going to be calling you regularly to
check in making sure that all is well with you and all as well with the house yeah makes sense George agrees she's
been a great wife taking care of him now unfortunately when the call didn't come
in George decides he's going to reach out to her so he calls the lodge and ask for his wife's room so the switchboard
operator attempts to connect him with his wife but there's no answer in her room Tuesday evening George still had
heard from his wife so he makes additional attempts and still no one picked up the ringing phone in room 109
where she was staying the desk clerk on duty told George that he was welcome to leave a note and that they would pass it
to his wife when they saw her or when she checked in with the desk the message George left was very simple it just said
please call home immediately now early on the morning of Wednesday March 16th George tried and failed once again to
reach his wife via phone so around 6:45 a.m. Captain George's brother his name is Herman he's going to get involved
he's trying to call as well and he's having no luck by phone getting a hold of his his sister-in-law aging Mr Herman
so now he asked the desk clerk could you go and check lilian's room and knock on
the door for the other rooms as well to check with with the ladies it was then that the clerk reported back to Herman
that said look we knocked on the door no answers we went in the beds in the rooms
appeared to still be neatly made almost as they haven't been slept in at all right and the lady's bags remained
inside the rooms unpacked now before we get too far into the story there's a lot
of different Source material out there there's a lot of great reporting there's a lot of interesting
speculation in this True Crime Story there's a lot of controversy here too and you will'll see why as we go through
the story if you're not familiar with the star rock murders but several of the sources will
state that some items were in fact actually unpacked so there's a little bit of a debate on the ladies bags were
untouched unpacked found in their rooms but to be perfectly clear the thing that
is not debated is that the bags were found and and mostly the items that they brought with them were still in their
luggage when the rooms were checked days after their arrival getting this information Herman then tells the desk
clerk could you or go to or send someone to check the parking lot right there should be a station wagon in the parking
lot the ladies travel together in one of their vehicles did a little car pull you
should find a station wagon in the parking lot with the license plate that carried a Riverside sticker they're from
Riverside which is a suburb of Chicago I don't know what news they were hoping to
hear but what they are told is yes in fact we do have a vehicle matching that description with a Riverside sticker and
it's parked in a spot near the main Lodge entrance I'm assuming this would be not what they want to hear here
because you would hope that maybe they're out somewhere together in the vehicle traveling about and that's why
no one's been able to connect with one of the ladies in now what is not quite 48 hours but almost two days of attempts
so this is when Herman calls francis's husband one of the other ladies his name is Robert Murphy he then calls Mildred's
husband as well Robert linquist they too confirm that they have not heard from their wives since they left for the trip
now Mr Murphy contacted Lal County Sheriff Ray uty to report the women missing the chief of the Illinois State
Police was called in to assist as well so now they're reported missing by both the county sheriff and to the Illinois
State Police as well and they're going to have to organize a search or or start looking for these ladies there's no
reason why these men shouldn't be able to get in contact with one or all three of these ladies yeah and this is going
to be a pretty big search because the the park is pretty large so late Wednesday morning parties of state and
local police and volunteers fanned out across Starved Rock by that time a severe winter storm had moved into the
region dumping several inches of snow that will most certainly add to the challenge of people trekking through the
area this is rugged terrain at parts of the park looking for these ladies the vehicle is there you would make the easy
assumption that you should be able to find them somewhere in the park having found their vehicle in the parking lot
despite the inclement weather and the amount of area to search and the rugged terrain it only takes
about 90 minutes for a volunteer group of boys from a forestry camp for juvenile
offenders to come upon the battered bloody bodies of all three women they are found in a shallow cave within that
St Louis Canyon one of the Park's most scenic locations it was shocking to me looking into this case that you can
actually that there's actual crime scene photos available I agree Captain they are very shocking and and hard to um
hard to to comprehend what you are seeing there we may have had an eyewitness or two that spotted the
ladies and we will get into each detail as we go but first Captain I have a general overview of the crimes and the
crime scene as reported in the newspaper later that week now I want to preface by
offering up a caveat we are not saying that everything in this newspaper report is absolute fact for those familiar with
this case regardless of which Camp you are in I think the reasonable folks will agree that there is much to debate in
this case but this is a good overview as presented by the Galesburg register Mail
newspaper this is from that Thursday plus I love how a lot of these 1960s journalists would present the stories of
the day or in this case the week mind we often hear and see in print the words the crime of the century this case 2
received that label many times over in the great state of Illinois especially in 1960 and 61 well again it's a vicious
murder for one two the photos are out in the public for everybody to see it's not
just one victim it's three victims so then the question starts coming is this one murderer is this two murderers is
this a group of people and how could this happen yeah how could this happen in a state park how could it happen to
these individuals I think it just puts everybody because of the brutality of the crime it puts everybody on high
alert we've seen this in other cases the one that comes to mind is the Phantom killer when those crimes happen it's
like the whole town shut down I'll kick this overview off with the reminder of an
important detail it is regarded by most is fact that the three women were last seen on Monday March 14th 1960 this is
just after lunchtime there is snow on the ground before the ladies arrive at starv Rock the day after they are
believed to have been last seen on Tuesday March 15th the area gets blanketed with we said earlier inches of
snow some Reports say close to a foot of snow the bodies were not discovered until Wednesday March 16th and the
article that we will be referencing here was in the newspaper the following day March 17th so skipping the headline the
article reads in part police burned through a heavy layer of snow with flamethrowers in search of Clues to the
sex murders of three matrons whose bodies were found half nude in a authorities said more than one sex
maniac probably was involved in the murders but they said they had no suspects and few Clues the women all
neighbors of a fashionable Chicago suburb and wives of prominent Executives Met Death while on a hiking Expedition
at Rugged Starved Rock State Park the bodies were found in pools of Frozen blood their clothing torn and their
skirts pulled over their heads quote it was a sex crime the most horrible I've seen in my 19 years as a policeman said
Police Superintendent William H moris moris said the only Clues police had were a 3- foot long log a pair of broken
binoculars and a dented camera all were found in or near the cave and covered with blood the log was regarded as as
the murder weapon the camera and binoculars might have been damaged when the women made a desperate effort to
defend themselves mois said police would try to find other Clues by using improvised flamethrowers to melt the
snow on the canyon floor around the cave quote we don't know what we'll find but
something has to give Morris said officials said the women apparently were way laid while they hiked through the
woods despite a Fierce struggle they were dragged into the cave either alive or dead an autopsy conducted disclosed
all the women had been raped and died of fractured skulls police theorized sex Killers followed the women into a box
canyon and trap them there the area is at the far end of the park a mile from the lodge and had only one entrance The
Killers apparently used the club and an icicle to attack the women the bodies were dragged through the snow
to a sand cave in a cliff 5T above the canyon floor the bodies appear to have been deliberately arranged in line at
the mouth of the cave when the women did not call home as expected Tuesday night
the husbands raised the alarm and a search was organized five boys from a nearby camp for problem adolescence
found the bodies the cave was only a few yards away from a frozen waterfall which
the women apparently ly walked out to admire the three Riverside matrons whose bludge and bodies were found in starv
Rock State Park had much more in common than death they were as friends and members knew pillars of their Community
devoted to home church and civil Affairs they are already deeply missed by many in this grief stricken Community they
were said a sorrowed friend exceptionally happy women and happy companions probably their most common
Bond was Faith so there there's a lot of information in that article and a lot of
really startling and disturbing depictions of the crime scene and what the victims may have endured during the
commission of these crimes one thing we need to cycle back to is the statement that autopsies were conducted and it was
confirmed that all three victims had been raped or sexually assaulted that would make some sense given how the
victims were found now it's a little bit of an embellishment to say that the skirts were pulled up over their heads
Captain you've seen the pictures I've seen the pictures we've reviewed a lot of different Source material on this
case that's an embellishment it the the skirts were pulled up with how cold it was and with the snow frankly I'm a
little surprised that they were out there hiking and skirts to begin with right but nonetheless that is the
situation so the the lower half halves of the women were exposed whether that was done to assault the women or to
shock whoever may end up finding them we can't say but what I can say is the rape
and sexual assault angle of this has been heavily debated over the decades in this case because the other Factor here
is that the motive for these murders has been heavily debated as well there are there is Source material out there like
this one that says yes the victims were raped there is Source material that says
maybe one victim was actually sexually assaulted and then there are other materials that say there was no sexual
assault at all that they were just displayed that they were just positioned this way for whatever reason yeah almost
like it was a ruse if I position him in this manner then people are going to assume that the motivation is sexual
eventually later law enforcement is going to say the motivation was different I think you're you hit the
nail on the head when you start questioning the idea of were they out there to hike where they were found
compar compared to where the lodge was it it was a very long distance there's also eyewitnesses that saw them at other
parts of the park before that they were obviously before they went missing so I think it's you can even question were
they out there on their own accord or were they taken out there by somebody yes and that is one angle of the
investigation that I think we're going to be able to clear up as we go through now the victims we have Mrs Mildred
linquist age 50 Mrs lilan oding age 50 and Mrs Francis Murphy she's 47 all attended and were prominent in the
Affairs of the Pres Presbyterian Church of Riverside so they all attended the same church and I believe there is a
plaque that is there to this day in that church and Memorial of these three women
and their involvement with this church Mrs Murphy's husband Robert he's the vice president and general counsel for
Borg Warner Corporation Mrs Murphy was an avid Rose grower once the editor of the Moline dispatch and served on the
grade school board she was the mother of four children Mrs oding belonged to the
Riverside Garden Club she enjoyed Shakespeare she was the mother of three children her husband is George he is
George oding the general supervisor of internal audits for Illinois Bell Telephone Company a shocked neighbor
said Mrs oding is one of the kindest most compassionate persons I've ever known Mrs linquist mother of two
daughters was a member of the Riverside Grade School Board of Education she was a past president of the Riverside
Friends of the library program and a stunned friend said quote she had a marvelous personality her husband Robert
lanquist is the vice president of the Harris trust and Savings Bank in Chicago so when we say prominent members of the
community of this Riverside Community and we give the little background of things that they were involved with
and their husband's occupations we can see obviously that they are labeled properly here as prominent members of
the community and their husbands have these important jobs in in in remarkable careers now a little more detail here
would be that the three arrived from Riverside this would be about a 90 mile Northeast travel to Starved Rock Park on
Monday the 14th after checking into the lodge the three took an afternoon hike to St Louis Canyon and as the captain
points out we don't know for certain if that was that location where they were eventually found was their intention or
if somebody else took them there or directed them there for nefarious reasons or or innocent you know totally
innocent reasons you know you should make sure you check out the Frozen waterfall over at St Louis Canyon right
but we do know they never turn after this and as the captain pointed out too the canyon is approximately a mile from
the lodge where they were staying one key part to this case I believe and we'll see this time and time again as we
go through the details is if one were to take the trail to the St Louis Canyon there's but one way in and one way out
to this Canyon it would seem based off of the phone calls from one of the husbands and then him alerting the other
husbands that the disappearances of three ladies three guests at the lodge went completely
unnoticed by Lodge employees now mind you they're not keeping track on every minute-by-minute movement of their guest
but it was only despite repeated attempts to reach them by a family member that we figure out hey we should
go out and be looking for these persons they are in fact missing as we said on the 15th a snow stomm dumped about
dumped nearly a foot of snow over the area and then on Wednesday the 16th that is when they were found now I want to
Circle back to something that we addressed with the rooms being checked the beds appeared to have not been slept
in made neatly this is according to Lodge employees also saying that the suitcases were still packed with all of
the items the debate then becomes at least one source states that some of the items were unpacked and that same Source
states that on one of the phone calls the husband was told no the three ladies were at breakfast on Tuesday so let's
address those two items real quick what we do know for certain is that the three
women after having lunch on Monday they went to their rooms and changed some of a portion of their attire for the hike
that afternoon so it is easy to make the assumption that whatever clothes that they changed out of may have been the
very small amount of clothing that would have been found in the Dressler drawers
of their rooms and mind you they are staying in separate rooms the breakfast comment this has never been verified by
anybody so I think that this is just a complete misunderstanding where someone calls
looking for the women somebody sees three women or a group of women having had breakfast and makes the mistake of
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on IOS and [Music] Android want to welcome you back cheers to everybody cheers to all the people in
the back cheers to you Captain cheers to all you lovers out there on this Valentine's Day week that's right true
crime garage the show for lovers yeah well sorry trying to transition after that it's a that's a tough transition to
make rooms checked as we said and the general consensus is everything appears that that none of the women had stayed a
single night you know beds are made and that's exactly what one would expect to find
with the women not having stayed overnight we can get into all the minutia of this case but we we have a we
have to stick to this timeline and we can't dissect every little thing to much here because again there's only this one
source to even suggest that the women were alive and well on that Tuesday morning I think it's a it's a very big
leap with no evidence to back it up the general consensus is they left for a hike after Monday's lunch and never were
seen alive again after that that's very important to our timeline and we discuss
this all the time time of death while we cannot narrow it down to an exact hour here what the investigation is going to
hyperfocus on is person's movement and persons who were in the area confirmed to be in the area that Monday afternoon
after lunch and potential I Witnesses for that time of day as well and like you said there's one way into this area
and one way out that's something that's working for law enforcement the thing that I think is difficult is like you
said there's a lot of people a lot of moving parts and not just people that are visiting the state park but people
that are staying in the lodge and then people that work in the lodge and people that work in surrounding businesses and
then another thing working against law enforcement is if you can't narrow down that the time frame
of the death that's going to really get in the way of establishing Alibis for suspects and I hate to be so flip about
the the overall situation because of course it's a great trategy horrific case loss of
life but that that's what we deal with time and time again here in the garage now what I'm what I'm always looking at
Captain and you know this is what advantages and disadvantages does your homicide
investigation have and each case is unique each case is very different and one advantage while while there are
certainly a lot of disadvantages to this case and we'll go through those but one
advantage that I want to point out here is I think that the time of year that the ladies chose to go to Starved Rock
is somewhat helpful to your investigation because this is a very large park with a lodge with dining
areas with places that you can that one could go to eat but it's also February so it's very cold out we've already
discussed all of the snow that was in the area so I would imagine the campgrounds were probably empty and the
amount of people at starve Rock whether it be to stay overnight or stay for a few days or even just visit for the
afternoon I would imagine that those numbers are significantly less and the cold snowy months of February than it
would be other times of the year so that is one advantage that you may have compared to should this horrible crime
have taken place in June July or August now I have to bring up something that listeners have to be thinking what the
flamethrowers when they're investigating the crime scene they're using flamethrowers basically to melt the snow
to look for evidence but that's a that's a risky business don't you think you have the possibility of tampering
with evidence yes no you're exactly right and I think that that might be a something that was done out of
desperation maybe so the flamethrowers that we're talking about this is not Saving Private Ryan flamethrower that
you're using to clear out tunnels right you're just shooting huge Flames into these tunnels to clear tunnels this is
have you ever seen someone that is using it's like a wand with a backpack and typic today you would see it used to
burn off weeds it's still very old school especially if you're burning off Weeds on the Cracks of sidewalks or
asphalt I only witnessed this a couple times in my years on this planet but I have seen it it's it's interesting
looking it's but that that's what we're talking about here so the the problem with the snow we talk about advantage
and disadvantages for your investigation having to use these little makeshift flamethrowers huge disadvantage for your
investigation the snow huge disadvantage for your investigation because the reports are with the snow that in some
areas it was just a couple of inches other areas they're saying that the snow was kneee and given the terrain that
does make sense but also you have to keep in mind because this is not completely completely flat land and you
have these snow drifts and some of these snow drifts are Knee Deep maybe even closer to waist deep for some people
while you're looking for evidence the ground is a great place to find evidence we all know that you cannot believe that
you're going to find all of your physical evidence inside this shallow cave where they're found again that cave
is about 5 feet elevated off of the canyon floor so we mentioned taken to this C
alive or dead if they're dead somebody had to go to great efforts to put them up there you have to go through this
snow seeing what maybe was dropped or placed there as the killer approached the victims struggled with the victims and
then fled the scene you're not going to expect to find it on top of the snow knowing that the amount of snowfall that
you've had since the victims were last seen what if what are some other points of evidence that we could look into this
case the twine is going to be very interesting here Captain so all the victims were bound with this twine with
their their wrist tied now this is not an item that is believed that the victims would have had with them on
their person so this is something that you are of the belief that the killer brought with them to the crime scene and
left behind the bodies were discovered at 12:30 as we said and all three victims suffered severe head trauma this
bloodstained tree limb so this is described as three foot long weighing approximately 10 lb this in the days
after the murders was determined to be at least one of the objects that was used to bludgeon the W the victims to
death we should point out here though that this being one of the murder weapons is highly debated still to this
day let's also not skip over the fact that the camera found in the binoculars that were found are also believed to
possibly have been objects that may have been used to strike the women so and note here that that the camera and the
binoculars belong to the ladies unlike the twine these items were brought with them for the hike right and as you heard
earlier they're going out to see this beautiful Frozen waterfall uh in the St Louis Canyon and as described the area
snow is kneee in some areas 22 degrees temperature outside during the search once they
locate them and during the investigation can you imagine you're out there trying
to investigate this Savage heinous triple murder up to your knees in snow at some points freezing your earballs
off the log binoculars and Camera these items are all very difficult so the the log
is thought to be one of the items that may have been used to strike the women maybe as many as 100 blows each to the
head and face area of each victim the binoculars in camera are up for debate right because some reports and some
persons believe that the binoculars and or camera were also used to strike the women there was Damage Done to both
items and I believe blood found on one or if not both items but then there's also some thought captain that maybe the
camera and binoculars were damaged in a scuffle or even used by the women as an attempt to defend themselves yeah block
block the log or whatever was being used to attack them or maybe even to strike the asant or asants uh with the
binoculars or camera well it seems like there's also debate on was there more than one item used as
a murder weapon exactly and I I think that and the reason why that's so debated is what we've already addressed do we
have one killer two killers three killers we know we have three victims and usually the number of victims and
the number of weapons used yeah would be extremely suggestive of the number of perpetrators involved
in a crime now complicated crime scene of course it's outdoors first of all there's there's going to be debris in
that area on the snow below the snow that will have nothing to do with your murder scene at all will have nothing to
do with the crimes at all when you're taking inventory of all of these items and cataloging them then you have the
added work of trying to determine does it have anything to do with the case at all where if you find somebody murdered
in the back room of a gas station or somebody who has been killed in the living room of their home it's very easy
to sort out what is a part of your crime and what is not the snowfall extremely complicated for the
scene and then we have to factor in something that we don't have to factor in a lot of times today Captain the
lookie lose right this is the 1960s for crying out loud and this is how they just seemed to do things back then it's
like town crier who's like we have a murder over here and then everybody just flocks to the murder scene we've seen
this in several cases that we've covered we saw it with the brick of family murders that took place in the 60s in
Cincinnati Ohio three victims killed inside their home and the police come in there and they invite the reporters
camera persons and neighbors to just come in and view the scene and if you see footage of the Starved Rock case
you'll see that there's just people walking all about looking and checking out what happened happened and and look
we can't fault the investigators in the star of rock case because that's just how they did things in most parts of the
country in the 60s it wasn't right they didn't they just didn't know any better they did eventually fence off the canyon
area and they posted police guards there uh to lock down the scene if you will this after many reporters camera people
and just people that were in the area were able to check it out right we always talk about transfer Theory
transference of evidence of course you can see how complicated that gets with with everything we just described murder
weapon you're always hoping to find the murder weapon left at the scene or you're hoping that the Damage Done to
your victim will be quick to point out to you that your murder weapon may be unique so that once you do question the
right person or search the right person's property your vehicle that you will find this item and be able to go
yep it's 100% connected to our crime scene here we have the complication of a log which again highly debated was
it involved in the murder or not they did find some blood on it they did test it for fingerprints they didn't find
anything I wouldn't expect to find much in the way in fingerprints on a log in 1960 I I hate to say this because it's a
little graphic but given their injuries and how they were killed and you pointed out the problem
with the blood evidence here I think that given their injuries to me wherever wherever the most blood
is found is where they're killed and the most blood is found in that shallow cave
with them right so that if I if I had to if I had to guess that's that's where I
would go with it and then then as far as where they were first attacked where the first struggle went
down could some of this Blood that's found outside of the cave could it be from the victims yes could it be from a
struggle yes could it also be falling off the perpetrator or perpetrators as they as they fled the scene yes so when
you have what's described as large pools of blood in this cave and nowhere else I'm of the thought that maybe they were
probably killed in that cave and then if if you can make that leap if you're willing to make that leap then you have
to go okay well now nobody has to carry them up in there you just have to convince them to get up there on
their own and Corral them into that cave and that clears another hurdle in your investigation if you're willing to make
those leaps the investigation is underway a large pool of good potential suspects will be pulling the
investigators into many different directions in this case of course they are going to be looking for persons who
were in the area of Starved Rock Park and more specifically the St Louis Canyon on the day of the murders Monday
March 14th especially the afternoon thereof another focus and rightfully so will be the employees and other guests
of the lodge investigators requ both list of employees and guests of that Lodge this is perfect for the initial
steps of your investigation you don't necessarily need to find your Suspects on either list but you have both staff
and Lodgers coming and going at all times of the day on Monday March 14th what did they see who did they see what
did they hear all of these parties were one mile from the murder scene maybe even closer if they ventured over to the
oneway in One Way Out St Louis Canyon or were on the trails themselves that day or maybe even overheard one of the
ladies say something at lunch of interest to the case so this action would lead the investigation to focus in
on a handful of persons with direct connections to the lodge and a few Outsiders as well on Monday March 17th
the day after the bodies were found the owner guest and employees of the lodge are interviewed individually now good
number of people are employed here so I won't guarantee that all were interviewed on this day but it seems
like most of them were now investigators will start eliminating persons if possible but also move people to the
Persons of Interest list on that list I believe right very early on we are going
to get at least three people that investigators seem to find an interest in this is Chester week ger age
21 he's a dishwasher at the lodge and he's worked on and off at the lodge for a good deal of time over the course of a
couple of years it is reported that he was in fact at work at the lodge within about a mile or so of the murder scene
on that day in question March 14th 1960 we also have Stanley Tucker I believe he's a little bit older than
Chester weager he works in the kitchen at the lodge as well and we also have a man by the name of George Spyros George
Spyros is the owner's son and he is a little bit younger than Chester weager I could not find his
exact birth date or age at the time of this case but I believe him to be 19 or 20 does that sound about right to you
Captain yes so he's the son of the owner now a few days out is when we first start to hear talk of possible suspects
so these people that we just mentioned yeah they're not mentioned in the newspapers early on even though police
would have taken an interest in the three well like I said we have a lot of people visiting the park we have a lot
of people visiting the lodge because beautiful Lodge but there is a ton of employees and so that's your immediate
circle anybody working at that Lodge is a mile away from the crime scene yeah and the reason why these three are going
to stand out so immediately you have you have some things right you're going to interview everybody but when this is
being labeled especially early on as sex slangs or sex maniac killer kills three
women immediately you're going well I'm looking for a male or males that were involved in this so right away you you
any of the males that you interview are going to be of more interest as far as potential suspects go than any of the
females that you interview these three will separate from the herd because all three of them were
at the lodge at one point on the day in question and all were leaving or had the ability to go
elsewhere around the time that the ladies would have been leaving for their hike or
shortly thereafter now a few days out is when we first start to hear talk of possible suspects this is other than the
first public suspicion that this must be the work of some deranged lunatic who was on the loose from the nearest Asylum
the information says in part two fairly good suspects are being questioned or are to be questioned in the Starved Rock
triple sex slangs this according to the State Police this information came in the March 19th paper 5 days after the
murders and 3 days after the bodies were found the police chief identified the two men as the driver of a truck similar
to one scene near the murder scene the other man is a man who lives nearby and it sounds to me Captain like it these
two suspects are separate from one another it's not that they think that these two were together but what little
information we have based on this report it sounds like these two had not been questioned prior that they are going to
be question right one important part for the investigators as the captain pointed
out would be to attempt to sort out about where and when the ladies were intercepted by The Killers because no
one is believing that The Killers happen upon them and the ladies were already just chilling in the
cave this while still attempting to collect more evidence from the scene so if I have your permission can I address
something here Captain go for it thank you God bless you Captain let it rip one of just many points of contention in
this case has always been could these horrific murders could they have been committed by one killer two killers or
more and this in my humble garage opinion is a very fair debate to be had I think one could make a strong argument
for all all three of those options but I am choosing to say Killers here because
that's what the papers were saying from Jump Street and check some of the police's words as well they are using
the plural most of the time when they are talking about this case so the search for The
Killers all right now we will attempt to sort of Rapid Fire move through this lengthy
timeline because there there's a lot of little interesting nuggets here March 18th there's a suspect he's a stable
hand he's questioned and released there is film found in the camera of one of the victims now this is sent off to be
developed when it comes back we're going to see The Faded outline of a man behind a tree this is
pointed out to the public by investigators March 21st police receive a flood what they refer to as a flood of
new leads and we have some of that information one is a lasa automobile dealer reports seeing a man talking to
three women along a road that's skirting the canyon a description opens up a Statewide search
for this person for the person that this automobile dealer says that he saw talking to the women the description he
gives is the male was approximately 25 years of age 5' 8 in tall 165 lb with reddish brown wavy
hair here this is something that's very interesting Captain investigators say that on the same day their probe was
strengthened when they received a call from South Dakota the caller was a reverend his
name is aw hefin he's a travel evangelist he says that he was at the park on March 14th the day of the
slangs and he said while he was there he was taking a lot of pictures he even did
a little Motion Picture filming while he was there that's what they called in the
newspaper Motion Picture filming so picture kind of zuder film so he's making a poor now no he's just he's got
his little I don't even know what those old cameras are called but uh he got one
of those deals so he calls the police tells them this that he was there and that I'm going to be very helpful I'm
going to mail you the film you know my for my camera my camera and my motion picture camera they questioned the
Reverend via phone on that same day now later we will learn that the Reverend will travel to Ottawa Illinois to be
interviewed by police in person and in this interview he says that while he was there at the park and one thing that's
missing from the details that they released to the public about this interview with the the Reverend is what
time was he there at the park right like if he was there early in the morning or
late at night none of this has to do may not have anything to do with our case at
all right but he does tell investigators that while he was there he heard voices
while he was walking the trails and at least one of the voices was a woman's voice and he says that he heard these
voices while he was walking along Trails east of the lodge now I don't think that
this puts him in the area of where the women were found or in the direct area of where the women were found but I've
never walked these Trails myself so I can't say 100% with any level of certainty here he does say that he saw
who he could only describe as workmen in the area and no one else so he never sees any of the women never sees any
women at all right just Al think that he heard them yeah we don't know what time
of day he's there but he tells the investigators that he was at the state park for approximately 3 hours on the
day of the murders well I feel like once we get the video footage we'd be able to
roughly know what time of day I mean we'd know if it's light or dark but this is why I like when we cover cases
because you my friend are the Ron Swanson of True Crime the best in the biz because I I've never even heard of
this guy yet good old Reverend aw hefin yeah a guy that's spreading the good word making films and trying to get that
money for the Lord March 23rd police report that they found potential new Clues one was an Overcoat
button and auto keys that were found near the canyon this is interesting because what is not in debate here is it
seems that all the investigators are agreeing that there would have been some kind of scuffle some kind of physical
altercation that would have taken place at the scene or near where the victims were found anytime you have that you
expect that you may find for a lack of better term debris of that scuffle or items that may have been lost or dropped
by your perpetrators as they flee the scene we don't have criminal Pro profiling going on in at any heavy level
here in 1960 but I did find this interesting there is a Penitentiary nearby they reached out to the
psychiatrist working there and said hey could you draw up a what they refer to as a prototype of the
Slayers based off of the physical evidence that we've gathered at the scene basically they're asking for them
for this doctor to up a profile of the killer exactly what what would be a very vague prototype of the Slayers and and
mind you notice the again using the plural this is kind of profiling the Genesis almost of
profiling where they're saying look you've interviewed a lot of violent offenders in your career who should we
is there anything that we should be looking for in particular we also know that on the same day that scrapings from
the fingernails of the victims were either being sent off to be analyzed or were being analyzed at this
time two days later on March 25th investigators confirmed so there there were there was the sighting of a few
different vehicles at the state park that people had either phoned in or talked to police about during the course
of their canvasing the area and and interviewing people anytime they were trying to of course they're always
trying to get license plate information from the people that they talk to or people that say hey I saw this
car but your average civilian not walking around making mental note or even writing down license plates so
you're going to get these hey I think it was this or yeah I I noticed that it was
this but what we get told on the 25th by police is that all of the letters you know I I don't I don't can't speak for
every state but here in the state of Ohio we have a set of letters followed by a series of numbers for our license
plates the information that they released says that letters prefacing license numbers of cars seen
at State Park have been checked and all the results were negative meaning if somebody told police that I saw license
plate OMG 1960 they ignore the numbers because they're not saying that they receive
full license plates they're saying anybody that told us letters from license plates right that is coming
before the numbers we have at this time checked our databases checked all the information that we would have and we're
not coming up with anything placing an actual vehicle with those letters on the plate at the scene it's just suggestive
by somebody it's not backed up by fact March 31st the sheriff flies to Rochester New York for a conf conference
with experts at the Eastman Kodiak company he takes with him film from the victim's camera remember the cameras
found at the scene and they get the great idea of we should probably check the film that we find inside this camera and
luckily enough it wasn't damaged to the point that they could not review the film that little piece of potential
evidence where they thought that they were seeing the out line of a man behind one of the trees so this would be in the
background right you have a picture of one or two of the ladies and in the background they see what they think is a
man who could be he could be the killer he could just be somebody walking and passing by he could be approaching the
women getting ready to attack them but once they take this to The Experts they review it and they
determine that this is not a person at all it's just a an optical illusion brought about by Shadows so it's
potentially just simply a shadow that they are seeing now where the three women were
attacked or intercepted by The Killers this as you pointed out Captain is going to be something very important
to their investigation this is one of the questions that they want to answer they say that the answers for this
started to fall in place when officials showed four pictures found on that same camera so this camera is found lying
beside the women's bodies right they believe that these pictures were taken by Mrs
oding because the picture showed the other two companions posing happily on Monday and
this is really only what is described as a few feet from the Starved Rock State Park Canyon mouth where their bodies
their beaten bodies were found two days later well what's great about this information though is we can then look
at the pictures and depending on what order they're in we can kind of start tracking the victim's movements exactly
and what we have the state's attorney Harland Warren pointing out he says that these pictures are proof that the women
were out on a nature hike and they were in fact surprised by who he's calling a sex crazed attackers after innocently
entering the escape proof Canyon floor themselves so they willingly walked into this general area where
their bodies would later be found the complications for the victim here the victims here remember back to the deli
case that we've talked about so much at length on this this podcast time and time again when the two victims got to
the other side of the bridge even though they could have fled they were essentially trapped by the killer who's
approaching them via the bridge right their their young minds are going to believe because nobody does anything on
the other side of that moanin high bridge you get to the other side you turn around and you come back so it's
it's always been thought that the killer sort of cornered them by forcing them to
either go past them past the person that they were afraid of on the bridge or just
freeze and stay there on the side of the bridge and watch the person that that has sked them out approach getting
closer and closer here even more so you go down into this St Louis Canyon and listen to the way that the state's
attorney describes where the women were standing based off of the the photograph
evidence that they find on the victim's camera says that the victims innocently entered the
escape proof Canyon floor which is bounded on three sides by 110 ft Cliffs so they're basically walled in right
it's either go through the person or persons that have approached you or remain [Music]
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filing software can't make taxes fun but Tax Act can help you get them done Tax Act let's get them over
with

The Starved Rock Murders /// Part 1 /// 736

Part 1 of 3

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In 1960 three women were brutally beaten to death in the canyon of a state park in Illinois. The Starved Rock state park was a travel destination for many. After the murders the park became the stuff of nightmares for many. The name Starved Rock is equally as intriguing as the homicide case itself. It hints at both mystery and violence. This week in the Garage we take a trip back to 1960 to discuss a case that is still making headlines today. This was both cold blooded murder and evil so cold in the frigid snowy St. Louis canyon of the Illinois State Park.

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Brief Summary

The episode details the 1960 Starved Rock murders of three women and the ensuing investigation into their deaths.

Key points

The Starved Rock Murders. Three women were found murdered in a state park, shocking the community.
The Crime of the Century. The brutal murders sparked national attention and remain a topic of debate.
A Mysterious Disappearance. Three friends vanish during a trip to Starved Rock State Park.
The Debate on Motive. The motive behind the murders has been heavily debated, with conflicting sources on sexual assault.
Victims' Background. The three victims were prominent members of their community, involved in local affairs.
The Discovery of the Bodies. The victims were found after a significant snowstorm, complicating the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The crime of the century is still heavily discussed today.

Legacy of the Starved Rock murders

5:05WatchFeb 14, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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