Taylor - The Two Lost Girls: The Mystery of the Grimes Sisters (Dead Men Do Tell Tales Series)

The nude and pierced bodies of the Grimes Sisters were found today in a scraggy stretch of freshly thawed land along a highway southwest of Chicago. Police said the girls appeared to have been dead about two weeks.

Associated Press: January 22, 1957

If youre good Presley fans, youll go home and ease your mothers worries.

Elvis Presley, in a statement from Graceland

The murderer in this case is diabolically clever. He used a method which we are unable to detect. Perhaps he is a person trained in chemistry with a knowledge of unusual poisons.

Dr. Jerry K. Kearns

There were marks of violence on the girls faces. I know that, and the police know that, too.

Harry Glos

Its a lie! Its a lie! My daughters wouldnt go to West Madison Street. They didnt know where it was. My daughters were good girls.

Loretta Grimes

Six years ago today, I killed Barbara and Patricia Grimes and Ive been running ever since.

Alfred Smith Lawless, 1962

ALONG A SNOW-COVERED ROAD

With the way that the sun rose so brightly over the Chicago landscape on January 22, 1957, no one could have predicted the dark day that was ahead. It was a cold, clear morning and the bright sun reflected off the snow-covered hills and trees of the citys far southwest side. The tall buildings of Chicagos downtown seemed far off in the distance for small towns like Willow Springs, which had sprung up along the Des Plaines River and the old Illinois & Michigan Canal in the 1830s. It had remained an isolated country town for more than a century and didnt even have its own police department until 1952. Five years later, the small community would gain national attention for the gruesome discovery made on that January day.

Around 1:00 p.m. on that Tuesday afternoon, Leonard Prescott, a 39 year-old construction worker from Hinsdale, was driving east on German Church Road, a country roadway just outside of Willow Springs. He was on his way into town to do some shopping and was probably thinking of little other than the grocery list that his wife had given him before he left the house. He was driving slowly along the wooded, rural road, mindful of the snow-packed pavement and the ice that was lurking beneath. There had been several snows already in the New Year; the last only a few days before. He drove down a small hill and then crossed a bridge over Devils Creek, a small tributary that was about 200 yards east of the DuPage County Line Road. From his car, Prescott could see under and beyond the bridge railing. There was a flat piece of snow-covered ground there that extended for only about 10 feet before dropping off steeply to the creek below.

Prescott later said, I didnt have a care in the world. My wife told me to go out and get groceries. I was going mighty slow and I noticed these flesh-colored things underneath the railing.

Reflexively, Prescott tapped the brake of his car and the tires crunched to a stop on the snow. He leaned over and tried to get a better look at the strange objects. He never got out of the car. Looking closer, he told himself that the shapes were department store mannequins, which someone had tossed out on the side of the road. He put the car back into gear and drove off, intent on going to the grocery store. He never made it.

Prescott was unable to get the image of the shapes on the side of the road out of his head. There was no use in trying to shop for groceries. He had a terrible feeling about what he had caught a glimpse of in the snow. He and his wife Marie had seen the newspapers stories about the two missing girls. What if?

He sped back home and hurried into the house. Marie Prescott later said that he was greatly agitated and upset.

My god, I cant believe what I just saw! Youve got to come with me and look! he told her.

Marie, who worked as a machine operator at night and cared for the Prescotts five children by day including a preschooler crippled by polio was not excited about the idea of leaving the house to go and look at something. She had children who would soon be home from school and still needed to get ready to go to work that night.

But something in her husbands eyes convinced her to go with him. Together, they drove back to the bridge on German Church Road and this time, Prescott got out of the car. Marie followed him and then froze about fifteen feet away from the two shapes in the snow. There was no question about what Leonard had seen the mannequins were actually the pale, naked bodies of two young women. Tinged with blue against the white backdrop of the snow, one of the girls lay on her left side with her legs slightly drawn up toward her body. Her head was covered by the other girl, who had been thrown onto her back with her head turned sharply to the right. It looked as if they had been discarded there by someone so cold and heartless that he saw the girls as nothing more than refuse to be tossed away on a lonely roadside.

Marie Prescott let out a choked scream and collapsed on the roadway. She could not believe what she was seeing. Weeping inconsolably, Leonard had to carry her back to the car. Once she was settled into the passengers seat, the stunned couple quickly drove to the Willow Springs police station, which was less than a mile away. As they pulled in, they encountered Sergeant John Alexander McKay, a two-year veteran, who was arriving at the same time.

Sergeant McKay later testified: I was just going to get out of the car, when this man, Leonard Prescott, came alongside. He was all excited, said hed seen two dummies lying alongside the road on German Church Road along County Line Road. I told him that I would immediately go over there, he should show me the spot. When I got near there, he stayed about fifteen feet from the line of the incline. I went down and I noticed the bodies behind the guardrail alongside of a ravine. I climbed out and looked over the ravine and I seen that there were two nude girls, I guess about thirteen or fifteen years of age, somewhere around there.

McKay immediately got into his car and radioed the information to the sheriffs police. Like Prescott, he was shaken by what he had seen and he also had a terrible feeling that the two dead girls were connected to the reports of the two young women who had gone missing back in December. After he made his call to the sheriffs department, he stood watch over the scene and waited for the official authorities to take over.

Just who was actually in charge of the case would soon come into question, but police officers from various departments county, city, and nearby suburbs rapidly descended on the scene. The father of the two missing girls, a man named Joseph Grimes, was led to the site to make a positive identification. Bracing himself for what he was about to see, officers led him to the ground on the other side of the guardrail. He looked down at the two bodies and choked out a few words, Yes, they are my daughters, before he burst into tears and slumped limply to the ground.

Barbara and Patricia Grimes, missing since December 28, had been found. Their puzzling disappearance had become two unexplainable deaths. Since that time, it has become one of Chicagos most heartbreaking unsolved crimes and the event that shattered the innocence of Chicago forever.

THE TWO LOST GIRLS

On December 28, 1956, and Patricia Grimes, 13, and Barbara Grimes, 15, left their home at 3624 South Damen Avenue and headed for the Brighton Theater, only a mile away on Archer Avenue. The girls were both avid fans of Elvis Presley and on that night were on their way to see his film Love Me Tender for the eleventh, and what would be their final, time. The girls were recognized in the popcorn line at 9:30 p.m. and then seen on an eastbound Archer Avenue bus at 11:00 p.m. After that, things are less certain, but this may have been the last time they were ever seen alive. The two sisters were missing for twenty-five days, before their naked and frozen bodies were found along German Church Road, just outside the small town of Willow Springs.