It was December 28, 1956, and Barbara and Patricia Grimes were on their way to the movies in their small town. They wanted to go and see their favorite movie actor Elvis Presley. The girls were inseparable. Barbara was 15 and Patricia 12: they both were extremely good students. That night, they had left their residence at 7:30 PM and they had promised their mom that they would be home by midnight. The girls had $2.50 on them for the movie, popcorn, and drinks.
Loretta Grimes, the girl's mother, wasn't sure whether they had walked to the movies or had ridden the bus. Their friend had seen them at the movies and in line for popcorn. Once the movie was over, the girls were supposed to return home. Midnight came and went, and the girls never came home.
Loretta had sent her other daughter and son to wait by the bus stop. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Barbara or Patricia. Loretta ended up filing a missing person's report with the Chicago police department at 2:15 AM on December 29th.
The investigation got to be very interesting because it was one of the largest missing persons reports in Chicago, Illinois. There were a ton of cops that were assigned full-time and there was a city-wide search for the two missing girls. There was a task force formed and a ground search on December 29. Volunteers had gone all around the canals and rivers with no signs of anything. Fifteen thousand flyers were distributed and a ton of people were questioned.
There were two arrests, but they didn't go through even though they confessed.
Barbara and Patricia's bodies were found nude along the road on January 22, 1957. The autopsies had shown that the murders happened within five hours of the scene. They both died from secondary shock due to insufficient blood flow to the tissues of the body.
During the investigation, some witnesses said that they had seen the girls getting into a car driven by a driver who looked just like Elvis Presley. The local cops thought that maybe the girls had run away and that they were staying with boyfriends or something. The cops weren't fully sold on them being missing. Loretta had pleaded with the public to ask them for help on the disappearance of her daughters. Tons of media were also involved.
On January 19, 1957, Graceland issued a statement asking the girls to please return home. In addition, Elvis himself had actually urged the girls to return home on TV and the radio. Nothing was heard though and the girls would've listened if they knew that Elvis Presley was putting out a message directly to them.
In addition to all of the investigations going on with the police, Loretta had received tons of ransom notes. One of the phone calls was a hoax and the caller was actually laughing about the details of the girls' murders. There were no credible suspects in this, but what they were doing to the girl's mom was sick.
How finding the girls' bodies actually went...
On January 22, 1957, Leonard Prescott was headed out to go to the local grocery store, and he saw something flesh-colored on German Church Road. At first, he thought they were mannequins. He had gone back home and brought his wife back to see from two different sets of eyes, and they realized that those weren't mannequins.
They were nude frozen bodies.
They ended up reporting it to the Cook County Police. It had just snowed and the bodies were covered. What was odd was the way the bodies were positioned. They were both in different positions and one girl was lying on top of the other. They weren't sure if they were lifted or dragged to this location. The girl's father Joseph ended up being the one who went to identify the bodies. There were no clothes or anything found near the crime scene. That wasn't normal but in this case, it was.
Autopsies were done the following day and they each got a five-hour exam. There was no closure on exactly which day they had died. It was either December 28 or December 29.
The details of their deaths were very disturbing and strange.
Loretta was having a hard time raising money for her mortgage while also trying to bury both Patricia and Barbara. These wakes were held on January 25 and the mass was at Saint Mary's church in Alsip, Illinois. The girls ended up being buried on January 28 at Holy Sepulchre cemetery.
Accusations surrounding the deaths of Barbara and Patricia were flying through the town. Walter McCarron, who is one of the coroners for the girls, had said that their bodies had laid in the snow for weeks. While chief investigator Harry Glos said that the girls had massive marks on their faces due to violence, he disagreed with the time of death and said both girls experienced sexual intercourse.
When it came to having anyone be considered a suspect, this case had one potential man who really stood out to one investigator. But of course, there were disagreements within the investigation team on who really had done the crime.
One of the private investigators, Harry Glos, thought that Edward Bedwell was one of the top suspects in this case. Bedwell was a drifter from Tennessee. He had worked as a dishwasher and resembled Elvis Presley. He was interrogated for three days and then on January 27, 1957, Bedwell was charged. He had signed a 14-day confession along with William Cole Willingham. He had said that they had been with the Grimes sisters on December 30 and that they had gone on a week drinking binge until January 7 in saloons and they had eaten hotdogs. Then, they had beaten the girls, because they had refused sexual advances.
Loretta had said all of these were lies, and that there is no way her girls would've done this. Willingham had denied being with the sisters. He had said he had only agreed to say he was not with them so that the police would release him. Bedwell had an alibi saying that he was working that night. Sadly, he had died in 1972.
The autopsy did show that the girls had no alcohol in them and that there were no signs of any hotdogs either. In conclusion, the autopsy was not consistent with Bedwell's confession.
One other suspect by the name of Max Fleig had confessed to the murders, but he was under the age of 18. Due to the lack of physical evidence, he had escaped from being considered a real suspect.
Sadly, Patricia and Barbara's murder case is still open. A guy by the name of James Hennigan, who is a retired please detective, wanted to bring closure to the family. He thought he discovered critical clues that would close the case.
With all the information that was being funneled to the investigators, there always seemed to be a lot of sightings, but some of the things that people would say never seemed to be legit.
The sad thing is that Loretta Grimes passed away in 1989. She was 83 years old and she never will know who the killer of her daughters were. Hopefully, with the advancement of technology and maybe someone coming forward, these girls will finally have peace.
Written By: Heidi
Sources:
The Murder of the Grimes Sisters: Chicago’s Notorious Unsolved Murders (Part One) | The Crime Times
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