IL IL - Barbara, 15, & Patricia Grimes, 13, Chicago, 27 Dec 1956

[annegrete]

This information is so helpful!

I am now understanding how Patricia would have at least been privy to Barbara's exploits- they hung out together all the time!

Did Loretta Grimes lose control of her daughters? Was their father involved with them at all? (I know he was divorced from the mom.) Or did Loretta Grimes simply not care what her daughters were doing at all hours?

StanReid suggested that the girls may have told their mother they were going to the movies but met up with men instead. I think so, too. Except I think they did go to the movies first. They may have been wild, but they may have also LOVED Elvis enough to catch another viewing of Love Me Tender before meeting the guys.

 

[Gunther Toody]

Thanks for the pics and map GT. Like I said, I remember the case in real time.

Yes, there would have probably been a cartoon, previews and possibly a newsreel (and even a short subject) before or between the features. I went to many movies (3-10 a week including drive-ins) with my parents in the late 40s through the mid 50s.

If the girls were so wild, I would have expected them to just tell their mother they were going to the theater and then gone off to meet some guys instead.

With all these contradictory sightings, I have to wonder which if any to believe.

The news article in this edition of the Chicago Tribune describes the events from the night before. Earlier on, I mentioned their going to Dora Fisher's house and leaving at 9:30. They asked Fisher to lie for them and they did not get home until after 10:30. This speaks of their wild side. They were not disrespectful to their mother, but maybe the household lacked discipline as far as they were concerned. Their mother initially refused to allow them to go to the theater because they came home late the night before, but she eventually relented.

Go to page 3 on the right side. The article title is "Fib May Hold Clue To Grimes Death"
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1958/08/31/

There were many sightings, especially along Archer Avenue.
A bus driver claimed they left his bus at Archer and Western
Trucker Daniel Eschelman claimed they argued with a guy in front of his truck at the stoplight.
Joseph Riotta claimed he saw what he thought was Patricia arguing witha man, who slapped her and ordered her into a car.
Walter Zdziarski claimed he overheard arguing and loud music in front of his apartment and he said it could have been Barbara arguing with a man
A gas station attendent who knew the girls saw them walking by McKinley Park which is on Archer Avenue
People claim to have heard screams for help

Some may be true others not. At this point its too time consuming to attempt to find these people if they are still alive.

Here is the theater listing for the Brighton Theater on the day they disappeared.

 

[Gunther Toody]

This information is so helpful!

I am now understanding how Patricia would have at least been privy to Barbara's exploits- they hung out together all the time!

Did Loretta Grimes lose control of her daughters? Was their father involved with them at all? (I know he was divorced from the mom.) Or did Loretta Grimes simply not care what her daughters were doing at all hours?

StanReid suggested that the girls may have told their mother they were going to the movies but met up with men instead. I think so, too. Except I think they did go to the movies first. They may have been wild, but they may have also LOVED Elvis enough to catch another viewing of Love Me Tender before meeting the guys.

They did go to the movie, several friends saw them there.
I have heard that there was a falling out between the Grimes family and author Tamara Shaffer because she was supposed to have stated in her book about the mother's drinking habits. The father played no role in raising the girls and had divorced their mother in 1951. There were no adult men in the house and that may have played a role in their seeking attention from males.

To Loretta's credit, the father left her with six children living at home.
I certainly would not criticize her parenting skills in any way. She worked long and hard trying to raise the family on her own.

 

[STANDREID]

We do know that the sisters were misidentified because the girls, who were originally said to be them, with Bedwell proved to be another set of girls.

 

[McKinley]

I believe that there was a neighborhood connection to the abduction of the girls. Four boys who knew the Grimes Sisters picked up the girls and molested them. Two of the boys jumped out of a car and ran into Peterson's Bowling Alley at 35th and Archer. The car, travelling east on 35th and now containing the girls and two of the youths circled around in the McKinley Park neighborhood and travelled west on Archer out to the Willow Springs area.

 

[STANDREID]

According to IMDb, Opposite Sex was almost 2 hours long so that crowd wouldn't have gotten out until around 11:30.

 

[PrimeSuspect]

I believe that there was a neighborhood connection to the abduction of the girls. Four boys who knew the Grimes Sisters picked up the girls and molested them. Two of the boys jumped out of a car and ran into Peterson's Bowling Alley at 35th and Archer. The car, travelling east on 35th and now containing the girls and two of the youths circled around in the McKinley Park neighborhood and travelled west on Archer out to the Willow Springs area.

Hi and :welcome: McKinley

Great bit of information you've got there, I suppose is from one of the 2 boys that got out of the car first?

 

[PrimeSuspect]

According to IMDb, Opposite Sex was almost 2 hours long so that crowd wouldn't have gotten out until around 11:30.

yep, and if there were only a few people at the Elvis movie, no witnesses who came forward. Except some mentioned about the girls being in the popcorn lineup, I wonder if they were at the Elvis movie or Opposite Sex?

 

[Gunther Toody]

They left before "The Opposite Sex" movie started.

 

[PrimeSuspect]

They left before "The Opposite Sex" movie started.

Ahhh ok, thanks GT, so only one screening room, The Opposite Sex screened after.

 

[Gunther Toody]

The missing hour.

Earlier in the thread, I told the story of the third girl.
She was with the Grimes girls both in the theater and afterward, when all three accepted a ride from a stranger.
Knowing that the Elvis movie ended at around 9:30 and they may have sat and watched the previews and cartoons, it should be safe to assume that they left the theater no later than 10 PM. The third girl does corroborate this time as well.

The girls were picked up two short blocks from the theater, which would take no more than ten minutes to traverse.
The distance to the third girls home from where they were picked up is less than 1 mile. That being the case, the third girl should have arrived home no later than 10:30 PM. That begs the question...where did the man go with the Grimes girls?

Did he drop them off at Archer and Western, where truck driver Daniel Eshelman claimed he saw them talking to a man standing outside a dark 48-51 Ford or Chevy containing two others around 10:30 or so?

If so, he claimed they got into the car unwillingly and it took off in the direction of their neighborhood. But that is still only 10:30.

From what we know from Earl Zastrow's statement of seeing the girls playing hide and seek in storefront doorways and joking around with each other, they were in good spirits, unharmed and no worse for wear. However, the sighting from Zastrow occured at 11:30 PM. which he maintains to this day is accurate because he had to be home by curfew. So what happened during that missing hour?

 

[Gunther Toody]

I believe that there was a neighborhood connection to the abduction of the girls. Four boys who knew the Grimes Sisters picked up the girls and molested them. Two of the boys jumped out of a car and ran into Peterson's Bowling Alley at 35th and Archer. The car, travelling east on 35th and now containing the girls and two of the youths circled around in the McKinley Park neighborhood and travelled west on Archer out to the Willow Springs area.

From the Chicago Daily Defender
Feb. 20, 1957

 

[TedMac]

From the Chicago Daily Defender
Feb. 20, 1957

View attachment 58209

If these guys were the killers, do you think they held them captive for a period of time, killed them later hiding their bodies somewhere and then dumped them where they were found or do you believe they killed them that night and dumped them immediately?

 

[Gunther Toody]

If these guys were the killers, do you think they held them captive for a period of time, killed them later hiding their bodies somewhere and then dumped them where they were found or do you believe they killed them that night and dumped them immediately?

I am having a hard time with the answer to that.
Keep in mind that these guys were all teens. They got into trouble with the cops, but nothing really hardcore.
The best way to answer this is to put yourself in the place of these guys. You and your pals are out drinking and riding around looking for girls to pick up. Likely, you've had no luck all evening and you are pretty high at this point. It's getting late and you are about ready to call t a night when you see two girls goofing around on a nearly deserted street.

Here is where the girls were last seen between 11:30-12:00.


It turns out you know them because one of your group dated the older sister of the girls so you go around the corner and call out to them.

Maybe you and your pals cut them off at this alley which is right in the middle of the block.


There are apartments on the second floors of all the buildings on both sides of the street, so you either jump out of the car, put your hand over their mouths and drag them in, or you just talk to them and they come willingly.

In any case, no one in this area hears any screams at the time.
So you and the guys get a little rough with the older girl, but she doesn't resist too much. The younger giril is a different story, she is almost 13 but still thats pretty young so she resists. You guys leave her alone....for now.

After the act, maybe the girls get mad and claim they are going to snitch. You guys sober up real quick and now you have a dilemma on your hands. Everyone in the neighborhood knows both you and the girls so you start to panic. Maybe you plead with them not to tell..maybe you offer a bribe. When nothing will calm them down maybe you realize that you can't go to jail.

So at this point it stands that you can't let them go and they have to be put somewhere where they can not escape until you figure out what to do.
Two of the guys panic and get out of the car by the bowling alley, leaving the girls with the two oldest guys in the car.

 

[Gunther Toody]

Let's take this to the next stage.
Utilizing information that we know, such as where the bodies were found and those involved in the discovery, we can surmize a possble chain of events.

I'll continue my story.

Two of your friends got scared and jumped out of the car at 35th and Archer, going into the Peterson Bowling Alley, where you guys hung out.



That left you and your friend with the girls who were by now either hysterical or very angry that you will not let them go home. As you wonder what to do...you drive Southwest on Archer heading out of the city. You find yourself near Santa Fe Speedway, a newer venue for stock car racing that had opened in 1954. The track was closed for the winter and literally deserted. There are very few homes in the area since the entire region has been dedicated as forest preserve.

Santa Fe Speedway



At least there, no one would hear the girls scream since it was already after midnight. You see a building away from the track and decide to break in...it turns out to be a concession stand. What may have happened in that building that night will never be known unless the case goes to court. Concession stands such as this typically would have a large walk-in cooler or freezer to accomodate the various perishable products they sell.

Both girls suffered facial bruising, consistent with either a hand or object being held over their mouth and nose causing suffocation.
Both bodies show little decomposition and no putrefaction so it is quite possible that the girls could have been placed in the cooler.
You leave the park and head home, relieved that you were able to get away with murder and nobody saw you in the company of the girls. You know that it will be at least Spring before the park is reopened and the bodies found.

All of a sudden on January 15th things abruptly changed.
Walter Kranz, a 53-year-old steamfitter, called police from a local bar on January 15 to say that he had dreamt that the bodies of the girls were in Santa Fe Park at 91st Street and Wolf Road. The park was around one-and-a-half miles from the true location where they were to be found one week later. Krantz claimed he saw it in a dream that the girls were there but it is more likely it was a bar room conversation. Did Krantz give the perpetrators time to retrieve the bodies and dump them by the road, or did the heavy snow that fell on the night of January 9th and 10th provide the opportunty?

Krantz himself would be accused of the crime and did fail three seperate lie detector tests, but was never charged and drifted into obscurty.

As soon as Krantz informed police, Santa Fe became the object of a massive search and police turned up a yellow sweater, found in the basement of...the concession stand. Both girls wore yellow that night, one wore a sweater and the other a yellow blouse.



Police exiting the basement of the concession stand, where the sweater was found.




Link to article that mentions Walter Krantz.
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/...mes-reward-offered-now-new-institute-declares

 

[PrimeSuspect]

Thanks for the pics and story GT, again it sets the scene as it might have played out, the deserted speedway and concession stand, definitely a perfect place to take the sisters and hide them once the deed was done. Gives me chills.

It's a fascinating mystery because there's a lot of information that leads in all different directions, one has got to be right. There were certainly many mistaken sightings, probably the style of clothing and scarves they wore in that era made it hard to distinguish them from other similar looking girls.

Walter Krantz, wonder what he was up to with his dreams and 'psychic' abilities? :thinking:

He reminds me of Franklin Wills in the movie, Man on a Swing. I've been watching as many true crime movies as I can in the last year or so, and came across this little known movie.
It's amazing that Franklin is a carbon copy of Krantz. He also claimed to have psychic powers concerning the murder of young woman. She was found dead on the floor of her Volkswagen in a discount store car park in 1968, no one knew she was there for over 24 hrs. It's based on the real life murder of Barbara Ann Butler.

 

[georgiasblu]

Wanted to add my thanks here Gunther Toody. Absolutely facinating.

 

[Cubby]

The missing hour.

Earlier in the thread, I told the story of the third girl.
She was with the Grimes girls both in the theater and afterward, when all three accepted a ride from a stranger.
Knowing that the Elvis movie ended at around 9:30 and they may have sat and watched the previews and cartoons, it should be safe to assume that they left the theater no later than 10 PM. The third girl does corroborate this time as well.

The girls were picked up two short blocks from the theater, which would take no more than ten minutes to traverse.
The distance to the third girls home from where they were picked up is less than 1 mile. That being the case, the third girl should have arrived home no later than 10:30 PM. That begs the question...where did the man go with the Grimes girls?

Did he drop them off at Archer and Western, where truck driver Daniel Eshelman claimed he saw them talking to a man standing outside a dark 48-51 Ford or Chevy containing two others around 10:30 or so?

If so, he claimed they got into the car unwillingly and it took off in the direction of their neighborhood. But that is still only 10:30.

From what we know from Earl Zastrow's statement of seeing the girls playing hide and seek in storefront doorways and joking around with each other, they were in good spirits, unharmed and no worse for wear. However, the sighting from Zastrow occured at 11:30 PM. which he maintains to this day is accurate because he had to be home by curfew. So what happened during that missing hour?

Where these sightings deemed credible?

 

[Cubby]

Regarding Kranz: (from the same article linked above)

Gehr said that to all other questions, including ones in which Kranz was asked if he killed the girls or knew who did kill them, the machine showed he was telling the truth when he answered no.

Also, the caption beneath the yellow sweater found at Santa Fe Speedway was determined not to belong to either sister.

Perhaps it's as simple as Kranz coming up with the Santa Fe theory, planting the yellow sweater at the concession stand because he read or heard about the sisters been seen at the concession stand at the theater and that they had been wearing yellow.

 

[Gunther Toody]

Where these sightings deemed credible?

I have personally talked to the third girl. She is still alive and lives West of Chicago. She still feels a sense of responsibility for what happened to the girls. I have tried to get her to elaborate on the identity of the man who picked them up but other than the fact that he was tall with dark hair, she didn't see much since she sat directly behind him. She also remembered the car was very dark or black in color.

Truck driver Daniel Eschelman contacted police after the fact, thinking he saw the girls. He didn't know them personally so we take his sighting as possible.

Earl Zastrow is still alive and living south of Chicago. My associate is friends with him and they speak freely. Zastrow is sure that it was the Grimes girls he saw because he did know them by sight. Zastrow gave a statement to police as well. The Grimes girls used to go into his family store on 38th and Wolcott and he knew them from the neighborhood. The only troubling aspect to Zastrow's sighting is the fact that the girls were on the north side of 35th Street. Had they taken the Archer Avenue bus home...they would have gotten off on the south side of 35th. There is no logical reason they should have been on the north side of the street.