I wandered onto this site today and was surprised at the length of this thread and how the same people have continued to frequent it, some for up to 9 years. I’ve gone back and read most of your posts and have found them insightful and interesting; and I’m touched by your continuing interest in this nearly 50 year old tragic case.
First of all, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Robert Blough, and I’m the brother of Patty Blough. It’s hard for me to relate to you the impact that this incident has had on my family over the years. My mother, who’s 94 now, still tears up whenever my sister’s name is mentioned, which is a subject we normally try to avoid. Personally, I still was having reoccurring nightmares about my sister 30 years after her disappearance. It’s always hard losing a loved one. But when someone is taken from you with this kind of uncertainty, I believe it’s the most painful kind of loss; due to the fact that there is no closure. I’ve talked with investigators regarding this case over the years, as recently as 2005 when the book “Unbridled Rage” came out and provided new interest in the case.
While reading through this thread, I was impressed at the fact that there is very little information, clues and leads that haven’t been mentioned here. There are however, a few things I can add from my own perspective, which I’d like to share with you.
First of all, Patty and I were very close throughout our childhood. She was 4 years older than I, and I looked up to her and respected her greatly. She was a unique person, very independent and very honest. Ever since I can remember, Patty was a horse lover. Even as a small child she lived and breathed her love for horses.
During the time leading up to her disappearance a few interesting things happened. First, the winter prior to her disappearance, she mentioned to me that she had a friend who was involved in organized crime. This person I later came to find out was George Jayne, brother of Silas. From what I’ve read about George, he wasn’t actually all that bad a guy, and certainly could not be compared to the pure evil personified that went by the name of Silas Jayne.
Sometime in early May, 1966, Patty came home with her face badly bruised and swollen. She had obviously been beaten up badly by someone. She claimed that she fell off her horse while exercising him, and our family naively believed her at the time. Even at 15 I remember wondering how the particular injuries she had could have come from a fall, and thought she looked like she’d gotten the hell beaten out of her.
Around this same time, my mother found some scratch paper where Patty had doodled, “trouble, trouble, I’m in so much trouble.”
The weekend before she disappeared, Patty and her friends also went to the Dunes State Park. She had told me she was going a few days earlier and asked if I wanted to come, which I replied yes. When Saturday came, she left early in the morning without telling me. When she got back, I asked her why she hadn’t taken me, and she answered, “You wouldn’t have wanted to come. We met guys there.”
I was sick with a bad cold the week prior to sister’s disappearance, and was lying in bed with a fever, when Patty came into my room and seemed troubled. She said to me, “I’m making out a will. I want you to have Hank (her Thoroughbred) if anything ever happens to me.” I said, “Patty, you’re 19 years old, what do you need a will for?” She said, “I just want to make one up. If I will you Hank, do you promise to take care of him?” I was 15 years old at the time and had no way of getting all the way out to Scottsdale farm near rt. 53 and Roosevelt Rd. from Westchester. Plus, I wouldn’t have been able to pay the boarding fees on top of it. I told her just that. She seemed a little hurt that I wasn’t willing to take on this responsibility; but I think she understood, and she told me she appreciated my honesty.
Later on that same day she came into my room to talk to me again. This time she said, “I’m going to tell you something, but you first have to promise that under no circumstances will you ever tell anyone.” I said, “I promise. What?” She said, “No matter what happens, you can never tell anyone.” I said, “I promise, no matter what happens, I’ll never tell anyone.” She thought for a few seconds and said, “I can’t tell you. Under the circumstances, even I would tell,“ and she walked out of my room. A few days later she disappeared; and had she told me this was going to happen, of course I wouldn’t have been able to watch my parents suffer without telling them what she had said, and she knew that. I sometimes think this was her way of telling me she was going to disappear, without actually saying it.
One of the men involved with Silas Jayne matched the description of the man who was reported to have picked the girls up in the small boat, and he owned a boat that matched the suspected boats description. It was an unusual boat for Lake Michigan, a 16 foot white tri-hull runabout with blue interior. He also kept the boat less than 3 miles from the Dunes. I can’t remember the source, but I read somewhere or was told that this person put in a claim on his insurance for the boat the week following the girl’s disappearance, claiming it burned up and sunk in Lake Michigan. I still remember the man's name and he's still alive. At least as far as I know he was still alive a couple of years ago.
In 2005 when the book “Unbridled Rage” came out, I contacted the author Gene O’Shea and had a lengthy conversation with him regarding my sister’s case and her association with Silas Jayne. Gene suggested I talk with one of the ATF agents that worked on the Helen Brach case. I contacted him and we also had a lengthy conversation regarding the same matter. The agent told me that one of the cooperating witnesses in the investigations of both Helen Brach and the Schuessler-- Peterson murders had told the agent that someday he'd tell him what happened to the Dunes girls. The agent explained that this person was difficult to deal with, and he had to approach him just right, but said he would reach out to him for me. The agent never got back to me, and I’ve found out that he has since retired. I’ve tried to contact him on a couple of occasions with no success.
Anyway, this is much of what I know about my sister’s disappearance. For years I believed she was still alive, due to the conversations we had just days before that dreaded 4th of July weekend. Patty had recently gotten beaten up. She had doodled, “I’m in so much trouble, trouble, trouble.” She indeed was troubled when she came to me and offered to will me her horse, and then tried to tell me a secret, which she admitted she herself wouldn’t be able to keep were she in my shoes. I now believe, like someone else on this thread mentioned previously, that she was in bad trouble with Silas Jayne and his horse mafia, and she was planning to stage her disappearance in order to get away from these people. I believe that most likely the man in the boat was part of the murder scheme and set the girls up under the guise of helping them disappear. There were reports of a large flash on the horizon, looking north from the southern shores of Lake Michigan on the day of my sister’s disappearance. Silas Jayne’s henchmen were familiar with dynamite. Wreckage of a boat was found near one of the southern Lake Michigan pumping stations; although no boats were reported missing. The only exception being the boat owned by the man associated with Silas Jayne who put in the insurance claim but never reported the incident to the Coast Guard.
I see so many of you have a continuing interest in this case, and I hope I provided some insight for you. If there are any questions you might have, I will be checking this site from time to time, so please feel free to ask me via this thread or a PM.
