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

[Ibiz]

My guess, I don't think Renee planed to get on the boat, that's why all the stuff was left on the blanket. I think it was a last minute after thought.

 

[Ibiz]

Why would the Largos be performing abortions on a house boat? Well, apparently they had spent time in prison for a botched abortion that had sent another girl to the hospital. Wylie had mugshots of them in his manuscript.

 

[Ibiz]

Not to mention that these girls had made this same trip a week prior, and according to their map, they drove right past the Largo's house which would have been way out of their way.

 

[Sailor Haumea]

As somebody stated earlier, the chances of anyone like Silas Jayne planning this are non-existent.Too many variables involved. Their abduction was obviously a crime of opportunity and i can not believe that no one has stated the obvious suspect. Richard Speck. His ship came in in mid June and these 3 girls disappeared 11 days before the 8 nurses were slaughtered in Chicago. It is a mere 40 miles from where the girls were murdered. I don`t know how well Speck was questioned , if he had a good alibi or if he had access to a boat but 2 weeks later he was behind bars for good and no more girls disappeared like that.

Speck was actually a suspect at the time, IIRC. He was apparently in the neighborhood close to their disappearances.

He was also suspected of being the murderer of Mary Kay Pierce.

I firmly believe that Richard Speck was a serial killer before the hospital massacre.

 

[habiby]

Hi there, I'm new here so I'm sticking my toes in a bit. This case really fascinated me. I'm sorry if this has been repeated, but something I found interesting is in this article: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/3-girls-beach-found-article-1.1216303 which touched on two things I did not know:

1) Blough and Miller were both pregnant by married men. Were these men ever investigated? Patty's brother mentioned that she scribbled down she was in trouble and had a secret she alluded she wanted to tell him. This seems to me to indicate the pregnancy, not that she was concerned for her life. How would Patty's family react to this? Is it possible that she would feel pressured to have an abortion and not carry through with the pregnancy?

2) Bruhl left a message to her husband in her purse. It said she wanted a divorce. This is tragic, I can't imagine receiving that note on the same day she disappears. But this brings up another point. All three girls seem to be in a bad place or having issues, maybe even enough to flee. Two of them are pregnant, maybe their families would disown them, maybe their married partners would be furious. The third wants out of a marriage. Could they have concocted a plan to flee together and adopt different identities?

 

[STANDREID]

Does anyone know what month Ann Miller was born in?

 

[Ibiz]

No, sorry. All I found was that she was born in 1945. Same year as my mom. Why are you inquiring ?

 

[STANDREID]

No, sorry. All I found was that she was born in 1945. Same year as my mom. Why are you inquiring ?

I was wondering if she was actually 21 yet or if they just subtracted 1945 from 1966. The other girls were born in 1947 and said to be 19. Although certainly possible, it would go against the odds that all were born in the first half of the year. The reason I wonder is it would make a difference if one of girls could have bought alcohol for the group or if they would have to go elswhere.

 

[Robb2014]

Cinci, You're right, the girls never asked anyone to watch their belongings. A couple that had been sitting nearby had taken it upon themselves to watch their stuff after the girls had been gone a while and some kids tried rifling through it. The couple were married to different people and took a while to come forward because they had been on an illicit randevu. They are the ones who notified the park rangers at the end of the day when the girls never returned. Very suspicious because no woman I know would ever leave her purse on the beach with money and car keys while they went off in a boat.

Sorry I haven't checked in here in a while. A couple things happened lately that has spurned my interest again.

 

[Robb2014]

I was wondering if she was actually 21 yet or if they just subtracted 1945 from 1966. The other girls were born in 1947 and said to be 19. Although certainly possible, it would go against the odds that all were born in the first half of the year. The reason I wonder is it would make a difference if one of girls could have bought alcohol for the group or if they would have to go elswhere.

They all had fake ID's and went to bars regularly.

 

[Robb2014]

50yrs , so long ago now. Chances of anyone involved still alive will be low?

Very likely that the guy who picked them up in the small boat is Ed Neifeld and as of a couple years ago at least he was still alive and living in the far south Chicago suburb of Crete. He'd be in his mid to late 70s.

For those of you who don't remember me, I'm Bob Blough, Pat Blough's brother. (I've been verified by a phone call with the admin.)

I've seen Dick Wyle's name pop up a couple times since I was last here. I remember Dick well. He did spend a lot of time on the case and I remember him telling my Dad that he would continue to investigate this case until he died. I've pretty much written him off however. I've searched him out and reached out to him on two occasions and he never responded back. So much for promises made by Dick Wyle.

My Mom is still alive and in good health at 98. We were talking about Pat's case just the other day and she gave me a name and newspaper clipping that might be related to this case that I'd like to check out. There's a research data site that Cops and journalists use called "Data Fusion". It's kind of expensive but the data bank is shockingly complete. I had an author contact me relating to a different matter and he used this to find me. He had every phone number I'd ever had along with every address, criminal record including traffic tickets going back to my first one when I was 18, along with every email address I'd ever had. If anyone has access to this data service and is willing to check something out relating to this case, please send me an IM. Also I appreciate the interest you all have been showing over the years relating to this case. I'll be checking in much more regularly from now on and will be available to answer any questions you might have. Thanks guys.

 

[STANDREID]

They all had fake ID's and went to bars regularly.

Hi Robb-Do you know Ann's birth month? I was born in 1946 and rememeber hearing in the 1960s that many bars in the Dunes area were known for serving underage drinkers so fake IDs might not have always been needed.

 

[STANDREID]

North Western Indiana was quite the resort area in the 1960s with the Dunes plus Indiana Beach as well as at least one nudist camp owned by the Drost Family.

 

[Robb2014]

No Stan, sorry I don't. Check on the Indiana bars. Just about everyone had a fake ID back then. There were no pictures and it was easy to get a duplicate license and carefully cut out a couple dates and paste them back to change the year.

 

[Ibiz]

Bob: do know if anyone has tried to speak with EN, and see if after all these years, maybe he would be willing to talk about what he may know about what Dick claims?

 

[Robb2014]

Ibez, I'm going to assume you're talking about Dick Wyle? What are you referring to that he's claimed? The info on Ed Neifeld is pretty common knowledge. Very suspicious... witnesses reported seeing the girls getting into a blue trihull boat. A trihull boat is very rare on Lake Michigan because they don't take the waves as well as a deep V. And I also read that Neifeld put in an insurance claim on the boat like 2 days after the girls disappeared. As far as I know, no one's ever questioned him, which is remarkable. I doubt he would be very helpful being there's a good chance he was complicit. John Rotuno, an ATF agent that had been investigating the horse mafia told me that one of his confidential informants once told him that "someday" he'd tell him about what happened to the Dunes girls. The informant is still alive and Rotuno said he'd reach out to him for me to see if he'd share what he knew. I tried contacting Rotuno again several months later but he never got back to me. This was back in 06 right after the book "Unbridled Rage" came out that centered around Rotuno's investigation of Silas Jane and his horse mafia. My sister and her friends are mentioned a couple times in the book.

 

[Jerry33]

Hi everyone, I am new here and stumbled across this site by accident, and have been hooked ever since. Just a couple observations that I have from growing up on the Lake a few miles from the state park and spending hundreds of hours hiking there. I would be interested to know which way the wind was blowing that day and the next. If the boat exploded and it was a South wind the pieces could be in Canada. Also, in regards to performing the abortions on the fourth weekend seems a little weird to me. The fourth weekend is the busiest boat and people traffic time the whole entire year. The line to get into the State park can stretch miles. It would seem to me the perfect time and place to disappear, from that point you can reach four different states and make it into Canada. Thanks for all the great work and interesting topics, really enjoy it all.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Just over 53 years have now passed since the three girls disappeared and I note there have been no postings here since last September. I wonder what explanation Ed Neifeld gave to the insurance company when he put in the claim on his boat (stolen, sank, caught fire, etc.) and how much did that company investigate it? Based on him being a possible suspect in the disappearance, you wonder what really happened to it.

 

[margol29]

Good post.^^^
I live very close to the state park. Every time we visit or drive past, I think about these women. Unfortunately, I don’t think that they will ever be found unless someone talks. It might happen. MOO

 

[Privy]

I don't know if this was posted in the past but here is a news article from the Chicago Tribune back in 1987 about this case.
WITHOUT A TRACE