IN IN - Renee Bruhl, Patricia Blough & Ann Miller, Indiana Dunes SP, 2 July 1966

[STANDREID]

Yes - good thinking. Not too likely in my view but certainly can't be ruled out.

I had a girlfriend who visited the park around that time and in the mid 60s it was known as an area (just outside the park) where underage kids could easily acquire alcohol. Two of the girls weren't 21 yet.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Because there were so many people on the beach the day the three women disappeared (July 2, 1966), they would no doubt have seen something like a sinkhole or similar event. What was reported to have been seen was the three of them talking to a man or men and then getting aboard a boat there. That is what I assume authorities have tried to work with in the time since.

 

[Richard]

2009 Northwest Times News article:

BRUHL, BLOUGH, MILLER: Dunes disappearance remains unsolved 43 years later

3 Chicago-area women left only a smattering of belongings on beach blanket

By Susan Erler
August 03, 2009

Three young women, two still in their teens, vanished from a crowded Indiana beach on a hot July Fourth weekend 43 years ago.

Police and park officials, aided by scores of volunteers, combed sand dunes and scoured murky Lake Michigan water. But the search proved futile, and the women never were seen again.

What happened to them is a mystery that continues to grip the imagination of a man who latched onto the story from Day One.

"From the first day -- the first hour that call came in -- I've been following it," said Dick Wylie, then Northwest Indiana bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. "It's been part of my life for 43 years."



<modsnip>

Renee Bruhl, 19; Patricia Blough, 19; and Ann Miller, 21, last were seen aboard a boat heading west from Indiana Dunes State Park on July 2, 1966. The disappearance of the Chicago-area women remains unsolved.

Anyone with information in the case is asked to call Indiana State Police's Lowell Post at (219) 696-6242.

LINK:

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/...cle_3df371d6-0ba6-5611-bfa6-9af13f00f34c.html

 

[kline]

Ive been thinking about this case since the discoveries at Oklahoma's Foss Lake and the Creek in South Dakota.
What if the explanation is simple,a boating accident?
There was a case near here in Idaho's Hayden lake in 1964 where two teenage girls were involved in a speed boat collision.
One of the boats headed straight to the bottom intact and the two girls vanished .
A massive search turned up nothing then 18 years later in 1982 a salvage diver not only found the boat but the two bodies of the girls preserved by the cold depths of Hayden Lake.
Now I realize this presents some problems such as debris but depending on the nature of the accident there may not have been alot of debris (Its not like the Titanic went down).
And of course foremost what happened to the man with the boat since nobody matching that description was reported missing in that area and time frame but who knows?
How many decades old unidentified cadavers are there on Doe Network where apparently no one did much about raising a fuss over their disappearence?
Its just a thought but perhaps in this case the answer is simpler then some of us might suppose.
I mean when you step back and look at it:Three girls go for a boat ride leave their gear on the beach and never come back and the boat is never seen again.
Whats the first thing to come to mind?
But then again a boat usually equals a trailer and vehicle so that certainly puts a large hole in my hypothesis since an abandoned vehicle plus boat trailer would certainly have been discovered any where near Indian Dunes.
I dont know just trying to look at this with fresh eyes.

 

[Markybug]

Could the boat have been moored at the lake?

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

An explanation such as this one has some merit; however, what about others on the boat besides the three women? Could any missing persons reports have been filed about them? Reports say one or maybe two men were seen on the boat in question. Could those men have come from the Chicago area or a location even more distant? If so, missing reports for them may have been filed in those areas by family members over the next several days. As such, it does make things a more complex jigsaw puzzle.

 

[STANDREID]

Very true. The movie cameras back then were usually handheld 8mm types which were not very high resolution. It is possible that the camera was a larger 16 mm. They were much more expensive and bulky, but had much higher resolution and clarity. A telephoto lens would make for better resolution as well. We just do not know what kind of camera it was.

With a 16mm camera there was also the potential for sound.

 

[STANDREID]

The Murders of Eight Student Nurses in Chicago by Richard Speck were particularly gruesome and the story was front page national news for weeks. Life Magazine dedicated a whole issue to covering them.

The disappearance of these three women from Indiana Dunes State Park, on the other hand, was more of a local story of limited distribution and coverage. To my knowledge the two cases were never linked in news stories of the time, and I do not know if police ever considered any possible connections.

Yes, at the time, the Speck story was huge here in Central Illinois but I don't remember hearing about these disappearances anywhere. The first I learned about the case was in a book I read about 20 years ago.

 

[Richard]

This is indeed a strange case. One person disappearing is rare, but three at once...

There are many possible scenarios which could have occurred. Most stated evidence and factors indicate that the three girls boarded a tri-hull runabout motor boat from the swimming area, leaving their personal belongings behind.

If that is what in fact occurred, I feel that some of the theories expressed, regarding such things as abortions, horse stealing rings, etc, are highly unlikley, because one has to try to mix together an evil plot with an aparent happenstance meeting.

A 16 - 18 foot tri-hull runabout is a small, fast boat which almost had to be trailered to the park, or an area nearby before launching that same day. The girls might have met the man/men earlier before entering the water and then the boat. Or they might have simply decided (while swimming) to take up an offer for a ride.

There was a later report of a larger boat with men and women on it being in or near the swimming area. Highly unlikely that the two boats transferred passengers at sea. Probably a coincidence with the two boats being unrelated. No one actually stated that they thought the three girls were on both boats, wheras they were seen boarding the small runabout.

 

[STANDREID]

It strikes me as very odd that boats, especially power boats, would be allowed anywhere near a swimming area - it seems extremely dangerous. I am not suggesting that the women were run down while swimming, that would be next to impossible without leaving a trace, but I suppose we were not so risk averse back then - just an observation.

 

[elliha]

I definitely believe it was a boat accident. Why no one reported the man? Well, maybe he was believed to have been somewhere completely different and no one has connected him to this case. Maybe he lived alone and wasn't very social? Maybe he had just moved and so on and so on. I am not one for complex and farfetched guesses, if there is a reasonable one I tend to stick to that one until something else is indicated. So, I believe this was a boating accident and for some reason no bodies turned up.

Also, about the man. What if he survived? He understood that the girls were gone and his boat was also gone and he just went home. He might have felt guilty and never dared to come forward. He might have been speeding and driven recklessly so he might even be charged.

 

[Dragonfyree]

I'm not so sure about the boating accident.

Was it transported to the lake? Wouldn't the car & trailer still have been there.

Were there homes on the lake where it might have been docked - wouldn't the missing boat & owner be noticed if they lived there.

If it was stolen wouldn't it have been reported?

We know identification is very iffy, especially if they're total strangers. The three girls look very much alike, which makes me think the style of hair and general look would have matched hundreds of other girls on the lake that day and the girls seen getting on the boat may have been misidentified.

I think it may be as simple as someone walked up to them and asked for some type of help (Ted Bundy at Lake Sammamish) they probably would have felt safe since there were three of them.

 

[Dragonfyree]

As to why no one came forward to say they were the people on the boat?

It was a holiday weekend. The people were from out of state and went home before the story hit big in the local news. I never look at local news when I'm on vacation in another town.

The eyewitness may have saw three girls and a guy, but could they see everywhere else on the boat? Did it have some kind of cabin. Maybe there were several more people on the boat, in a cabin, sunbathing on the deck that the witness didn't see. They figured "Oh we had 6 people on the boat or we had 4 girls on the boat or any number of variations, so never thought it was them.

Remember at this time local news was very local and unless a case was very unusual it never made national the news. I think the Barbara Mackle kidnapping occurred around 1968 - it was widely reported because of her being buried alive and her father was very rich. But that was unusual.

How many of these cases in the 1960's do you remember on your own, without having seen it here on the board. I would bet unless you lived in or near the town, you didn't hear about most of these, even some that we now find incredible.

 

[elliha]

I'm not so sure about the boating accident.

Was it transported to the lake? Wouldn't the car & trailer still have been there.

Were there homes on the lake where it might have been docked - wouldn't the missing boat & owner be noticed if they lived there.

If it was stolen wouldn't it have been reported?

We know identification is very iffy, especially if they're total strangers. The three girls look very much alike, which makes me think the style of hair and general look would have matched hundreds of other girls on the lake that day and the girls seen getting on the boat may have been misidentified.

I think it may be as simple as someone walked up to them and asked for some type of help (Ted Bundy at Lake Sammamish) they probably would have felt safe since there were three of them.

If the guy survived the accident he would most likely have gotten into his car and driven home taking it and the trailer with him. If I remember correctly there were in fact parts from a boat found.

Sure, they might not have been the girls on the boat but there things were found by the lake so they were most likely there at least for a while.

 

[Dragonfyree]

If the guy survived the accident he would most likely have gotten into his car and driven home taking it and the trailer with him. If I remember correctly there were in fact parts from a boat found.

Sure, they might not have been the girls on the boat but there things were found by the lake so they were most likely there at least for a while.

I believe they were at the lake, but I think there may be too much credit being given to them getting on a boat.

My question on a car & trailer was on the suspicion that there was a boat accident and every one got killed. If the boat owner was a survivor, what did he do, swim back to the beach? Wouldn't someone have noticed. For the entire boat to disappear and never be found, plus three bodies, they must have been in a deep part of the lake and it must have been crowded on a holiday weekend, wouldn't someone one have noticed a lone person in the middle of the lake. Wouldn't he have tried to get picked up and taken back to shore.

 

[kline]

As to why no one came forward to say they were the people on the boat?

It was a holiday weekend. The people were from out of state and went home before the story hit big in the local news. I never look at local news when I'm on vacation in another town.

The eyewitness may have saw three girls and a guy, but could they see everywhere else on the boat? Did it have some kind of cabin. Maybe there were several more people on the boat, in a cabin, sunbathing on the deck that the witness didn't see. They figured "Oh we had 6 people on the boat or we had 4 girls on the boat or any number of variations, so never thought it was them.

Remember at this time local news was very local and unless a case was very unusual it never made national the news. I think the Barbara Mackle kidnapping occurred around 1968 - it was widely reported because of her being buried alive and her father was very rich. But that was unusual.

How many of these cases in the 1960's do you remember on your own, without having seen it here on the board. I would bet unless you lived in or near the town, you didn't hear about most of these, even some that we now find incredible.

Very true.
the vast majority of these cases I heard about them hear first.(including this one.)
I cant count the times Ive thought"How could I have never heard about this?"
In the days before the 24 hour news cycle local news was local.
In the 60's and 70's we only got three TV stations all from Spokane.
If it didnt happen there or something of National Importance to make Walter Kronkite we didnt hear about it.
On this one I still go back and forth on this one.
Perhaps if there was an accident and the three girls were thrown from the boat or whatever the guy may well have panicked and split back to wherever spending the rest of his life afraid soemone would connect him to it.
Or perhaps as others have pointed out the boat is a red herring.
Maybe they never got on a boat and were abducted from somewhere else.
To me it was either some kind of accident or they attracted the attention of some predator while at the beach.

 

[TroyinTX]

This case makes me think of the Starved Rock State Park (IL) murders that occurred in 1960. Three women were murdered in the park. The main difference being that the bodies were actually located in the Starved Rock Murders. Still, three women...state park....Illinois is not that far from Indiana and the three Dune's victims has ties to Illinois.

Someone was convicted of the Starved Rock Murders, but apparently many feel he wasn't the killer.

Probably not connected at all, but that is what I thought of reading this case.

 

[dogperson]

This would not be the only case where false identification was made, witnesses thinking they saw the missing people somewhere. I was reading about one last week here on WS where a missing child was thought to have been seen in a store with a woman following her disappearance but now evidently this sighting has been discounted.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

I well remember the Starved Rock State Park murders. Of course, in that case, the bodies were found and evidence obtained which led to the case being solved. To those who say such incidents were not reported on a large scale back then, I remember hearing about it on the news. Life magazine even had an article complete with a photo of two of the womem that had been taken on their hike by the third woman (from a camera that had been recovered where their bodies were found). I well remember the chilling mention that authorities at first wondered if the killer might have been captured on one of the pictures still in that camera - but he wasn't.

I have always felt the best chance authorities have is to obtain information on the boat in question is from the home movie film reportedly taken by a visitor in the park that day. Despite it having been taken all of those years ago, current technology might enable them to possibly see the lettering or numbering on that craft which may enable them to identify who the owner was.

 

[STANDREID]

I remember the Starved Rock case as well. It was only about 50 miles from me. I think, as I believe someone else mentioned, that we should not get too fixated on the boat angle. It may have nothing to do with the disappearance.