Barbara and Patricia Grimes were teenage sisters who went missing in December 1956. The case attracted major press coverage, including a plea for the girls to return home from Elivs Presley. Many people claimed they had seen the girls in the hours after they disappeared, but their bodies were found in January the following year. No one has ever been convicted of the crime, and the case remains a mystery to this day.
Barbara and Patricia's Final Night
At around 7.30pm on December 28, Barbara (aged 15) and Patricia (aged 13) left their home in Chicago to attend the new Elivis Presley film ‘Love Me Tender’ at the Brighton Theatre. It is not known how the girls arrived at the theatre a mile and a half away, but they had planned on taking the bus there and back.
Dorothy Weinert, a friend of Patricia’s sat behind the sisters during the showing of the film, and joined them in the intermission at the popcorn queue. She claimed that both girls were in good spirits and did not notice anything unusual. The sisters stayed to watch the second film, and were expected home via the bus at 11.45pm.
When they had not arrived home by midnight, their mother Loretta sent their older brother and sister out to the bus stop to wait for them. Three buses passed with no sign of Barbara or Patricia, and the siblings returned home to their growingly frantic mother. Loretta called the police at 2:15am to report her daughters missing.
A Missing Persons Case
When Loretta Grimes first reported her daughters missing, the police believed the girls had ran away and were not overly concerned for the first week. However, their mother was certain they had not left home; there were no family problems to justify this and all of their possessions were left behind.
After almost a week of no official sightings of the girls, the police grew concerned for the safety of the Grimes sisters. They appealed via the press for any news of their whereabouts and attracted national attention. It was rumoured that they had gone to Tennessee to see Elvis Presley in concert, and On January 19, 1957, a statement was issued from Presley’s Grace land estate: “If you are good Presley fans, you’ll go home and ease your mother’s worries.”
Reported sightings pored in to Sheriff’s department from the general public who had heard about the girls’ disappearance, but none of them led to any solid evidence.
Discovery of the Grimes Sisters
On January 22, 1957, Leonard Prescott, a construction worker was driving along German church Road in Willow Springs when he spotted what he believed to be two mannequins behind a guard rail. Unsure as to what he had seen, he came back to the location with his wife, who fainted when she realised they were the naked bodies of two girls.
The couple called the police, who found Patricia Grimes on her back, covering Barbara’s head. Barbara was positioned on her left side with her legs drawn up towards her body. The authorities suspected that they had been dumped there from a passing car. The bodies were taken to the morgue where pathologists performed autopsies on the teenagers.
The autopsy showed that the girls’ stomachs both contained what was known to be their last meal, proving that they had died within five hours of the time they were last seen at the theatre. This placed their time of death in the early hours of the morning of the 29 December. However, this was disputed by the chief investigator for the Cook County coroner’s office, Harry Glos, who claimed that a thin layer of ice found on the bodies proved they had been alive until January 7 at least.
Neither girl showed signs of obviously fatal wounds, despite having bruises, rodent bites and three puncture wounds on Barbara’s chest. These puncture wounds were believed to have been made by an ice pick. The bodies were “very clean” and tests showed that Barbara had sex around the time of her death, although the evidence showed this was more than likely consensual. The immediate cause of death for both girls was “secondary shock” which was caused by being exposed to low temperatures.
Suspects and Arrest
- Bennie Bedwell
Despite having several suspects throughout the investigation, only one man was ever arrested for the crime. Edward “Bennie” Bedwell was a 21 year old illiterate drifter who had found a job working as a dishwasher at the D & L Restaurant. According to Minnie Duros, the owner of the establishment, she saw Bedwell with the Grimes sisters in the restaurant on the morning of 30 December, 1956.
Bedwell was picked up by the local authorities, who allegedly interrogated him in a motel room owned by the Sheriff’s deputy for three days. After the three days, a written confession was produced, which claimed he and another man were with the Grimes sisters on 7 January. It goes on to declare the four spent the next seven days drinking at West Madison Street (skid row) bars. The two men fed the girls hot dogs, beat them to death for refusing to have sex with them, then discarded their bodies on 13 January.
The young dishwasher quickly recanted his confession, stating that he had been coerced into signing it. Supporting his claim was the autopsy results, which showed no alcohol or blood in either of the victims, nor had they been beaten to death. He was released shortly afterwards.
- Max Fleig
Fleig was a 17 year old male who was brought in for questioning and a polygraph test. He failed the polygraph and allegedly confessed to kidnapping the to sisters. However, it was illegal to perform polygraph tests physical evidence to support the theory that Fleig did kidnap or murder Barbara and Patricia.
- Walter Kranz
Kranz was a 53 year old steam fitter who called the police after having dreamt of the girls’ bodies. They were later found just a mile and a half away from his given location a week later. Police investigated him and his “psychic powers” and released him without charge.
There were no further arrests, nor any viable suspects produced by the investigation and the case remains a mystery.
