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Hi, crime junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brit. And this is Chuck, the Chuck of Audio Chuck. Please forgive us,
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but our 14-year-old man wanted to cuddle today, and I'm I'm allowing it. Totally.
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And it's not going to keep me from telling you an incredible story. And that story is a mystery right out of our
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home state of Indiana. I've heard this story, but listen, Brett, the circumstances of this are so foreign,
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but it always felt so far away to me. We're talking horse mobsters, illegal medical boats operating out in open
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waters. There has been no case like this before or since. And that's why it's one
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of Indiana's most infamous cases. The workday has barely started on Monday, July 4th, 1966 when Indiana
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Dunes State Park, which today is surrounded by Indiana Dunes National Park, like it's like a whole thing.
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Anyways, Superintendent William Spedic is getting a panicked call on his office phone. The caller IDs himself as Harold
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Blau and he's like, "Look, my daughter and her friends were at your park on Saturday. It's Monday now and they
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haven't come home." My wife and I are super worried. You know, these are three young women. Harold's daughter,
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Patricia, she's 19. Her friends Ann Miller and Renee Brule are around the same age, like 21 and 19, respectively.
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Okay. But Patricia still lives at home and she wouldn't leave for days without giving
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her parents a heads up. And Patricia had even told her mom Saturday, that morning
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when she left, that she would be home that night for dinner. And the other girls were supposed to be home, too. But
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none of them returned to their Chicago homes just over the state line. Spedic tells Harold, "Okay, listen. I'll look
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into it." But this uneasy feeling starts to creep in his belly because he might already know something about the missing
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girls. And it could be bad. You see, 2 days before on Saturday, a park ranger had brought a bunch of random items into
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his office, saying that there were things that had been left on the beach of Lake Michigan by three women who went
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into the water and boarded a boat around noon that day, but then never returned.
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How did they know that? Because there were witnesses. There were some teenagers nearby that had seen them get
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onto the boat. They saw them leave their stuff and then they alerted the ranger when they were like those teenagers were
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getting ready to go and the stuff was still there because it seemed like this is the kind of stuff that you like
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wouldn't you would leave only if you were planning to come back, right? Like there's like the thermos, some
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sunglasses, lotion, those kind of things. Even more significant items too like cash, a purse, clothes, a pair of
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shoes. like they should have been back. Right now, at the time, the ranger wasn't especially concerned when he
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collected these things. Though, the Chicago Tribune reports that he did get a description of the boat, at least,
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which they said was a small boat with white exterior and a blue interior, maybe turquoise-ish blue, and it had an
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outboard motor. They even gave the Ranger a description of the driver, which they say was a tan, dark-haired
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young man. But listen, people leave stuff on the beach all the time, especially on crowded days like the
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Saturday before the 4th of July. So, at the time, he just gathered the things up
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and dropped them in FedEx office. But no one was like out manning a massive search or trying to find the owners of
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these items at the time. Now, everyone kind of thought that whoever it was that owned these things would eventually come
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looking for the stuff at some point. But now, with this phone call, a darker thought washes over FedEx. Lake Michigan
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is notorious for its strong, unpredictable currents. Like, it is not outside the realm of possibility that
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the women, maybe even their captain, too, had gone for a swim or gotten into an accident and found themselves
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outmatched by mother nature. Like, we live here, so many people underestimate Lake Michigan. Yeah. Yeah. So, once he
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hangs up with Harold, FedEx starts rifling through the items. He's looking for clues. And I mean to be fair, he
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doesn't even know that the women who left these things were Patricia Anne and Renee. It just like to him feels too
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much like of a coincidence not to be. But that's the first order of business right now. When he finds a keychain with
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car keys and a miniature Illinois license plate and realizes that the plate has what looks like a pretty
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legitimate plate number, he gets this idea. He calls a few employees, sends them out to check the parking lot near
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the dunes, and sure enough, there is a car with that exact plate in the lot. And sure enough, when they run down the
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plate number with Chicago PD, gets the confirmation he needs. The car in the parking lot is registered to Anne Miller
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from the Chicago suburb of Westchester, which makes this official. He has got a triple disappearance on his hands. And
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something of that magnitude is above his pay grade. So that's when seasoned Indiana State Police investigator
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Detective First Sergeant Edward Burke steps in to help the investigation. And he doesn't waste any time. One of his
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first moves is to go through the purse that had been left on the beach. And it turns out that purse belonged to Renee.
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And he knows it's hers because inside he finds this rather intriguing letter. Now, Ann and Patricia lived at home with
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their parents, but 19-year-old Renee is actually married and lives with her husband at the time, and this letter
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that they find was addressed to him. And is he like away somewhere? No. So, they
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live together. I mean, I assume they see each other like on the daily, but it seems like maybe they were a couple that
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liked to get thoughts down on paper when there were like big things, which I think is what this was. Cuz basically in
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this letter there are some issues that she brings up like her husband spending way too much time with his buddies
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tinkering with hot rods which like sounds light and almost cute but it wasn't either of those things to Renee.
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She even threatens to split up over this. But it looks like I mean maybe she had second thoughts about giving this to
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him because according to the date scribbled on this letter it's like 2 weeks old by that point like when he's
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seeing it. M. So, Sergeant Burke isn't quite sure what to make of it, but he also doesn't have time to really ponder
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this. Feeling like might be right about the woman's fate, he calls the US Coast Guard to search the lake near the park
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way at the southern end. And boy, does the Coast Guard have their work cut out for them because Lake Michigan is
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enormous. I said, you guys, everyone underestimates it. Lake is like not even the right word. Over
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22,000 square miles. Enormous is how big we're talking about. And even if you've
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seen the lakes on like a map in school or geography or whatever, like it doesn't give you a sense for it. No.
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Like standing on the shore, it honestly looks like an ocean. An ocean. I mean, you can get out there at at some point
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and literally not see land on any side of you. It is huge. So, it's not all that surprising when they end the day
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empty-handed. So, first thing next morning, Sergeant Burke gets a huge ground search going to complement the
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Coast Guard's efforts. He wants every last square inch of the park covered and also a good stretch of shoreline beyond
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the park. And it's a hell of a task. And for it, he assembles a hell of a search
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party. A bunch of troopers and park rangers obviously, and even soldiers from a nearby base, deputies from Porter
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County Sheriff's Office, citizen volunteers who will eventually be joined by their blood hounds. And with the
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Coast Guard still at it, they're searching literally plane, train, and automobile here. And maybe not
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literally, but almost. You get what I'm saying? And by the end of the day, the searches have covered 40% of the park,
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almost. And still, there is just nothing. Now, the Chicago Tribune reports that while the search is put on
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hold overnight, Sergeant Burke orders a patrol to man the shore until sunrise, thinking if the women maybe drowned,
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their bodies could wash up soon. And while drowning from a boating accident is only one theory, it's not at all out
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of the question that they also could have met with foul play. So, they got to find this boat, like if they're going to
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know either way, right? And while there are some sightings of white boats with blue interiors, they don't find a boat
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that could have been in the area, like the boat when the girls went missing. Are they sure they even got on a boat in
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the first place? I know we have that one sighting of the three girls getting on the boat, but did anyone else see that
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happen? They're not sure of anything. I mean, you're right. All they have to back up even this boat story, like from
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the beginning, is just the word from those teenagers who alerted the ranger. But I will say over the first couple of
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days as this goes on, like when the story starts making news, people start coming forward, they start getting some
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more witness tips, and that does seem to support the boat story. More people who
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say they saw the women climb onto a white boat with a dark-haired, well-tanned man that day. And actually,
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there are even a few reports of them being seen on a larger boat, like this time with three men. And that was at
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some point that same afternoon. But for some reason, I think that like those are
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mostly discounted. So, a few days into the search, the idea of some sort of fatality causing boat accident starts to
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gain traction. But according to more reporting in the Chicago Tribune, random boat debris starts washing up on shore
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not far from the park. Pieces of seats, styrofoam, scraps of metal, plywood, turquoise plywood, and they can tell
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that this wreckage came from what the reporting refers to as a quote unquote outboard motorboat. And like I said,
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this stuff isn't washing up hours away. It's washing up like 3 miles away near some sort of power plant. Now, at this
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time, there haven't been any reports of a missing boat. No reports of a crash or
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of missing or injured Boers, which some find kind of strange. But it also might just mean that the guy who owned the
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boat isn't around to report it missing or couldn't call it in before something happened, right? or destroying the boat
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was intentional because they find something weird among the wreckage. The debris is strewn with cans of oil and
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gasoline. Some of the plywood is even dowsted in [Music] it. Two branches of the same tree.
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two pieces of a soul. Where one sister goes, the other will be. For she is but half of the
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whole. So, it feels like something fishy is a foot. And yet, pretty quickly, authorities announced that the wreckage
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couldn't have anything to do with the missing women because there were no reports of a boating accident. All the
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more reason to be suspicious. I mean, something clearly happened here. The boat didn't douse itself in gasoline.
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And it only gets worse from there because the Terraote Star reports that soon authorities announced that the
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wreckage is from a rowboat. A metal rowboat. A metal rowboat that was also made of turquoise plywood and collided
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with something with enough force to just completely disintegrate it into pieces.
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Yes. Right. Like it feels like there's some tunnel vision going on here because the Teroot Tribune reports that when
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investigators are asked about three different possibilities, right? So like drowning, foul play, or a planned
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disappearance, their response is telling. They say that there is no evidence of drowning or foul play. So
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now they think the women pieced out on purpose. Well, at first they play it koi, but by the one week mark, Sergeant
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Burke is like, "Yeah, we're pretty sure this was all orchestrated." the boat stuff too, like they blew it up or
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that's unrelated. Still unrelated. They're not even trying to make sense of the wreckage. And I get why they start
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doubting the drowning theory. Like maybe a little premature, but I mean they've devoted so much manpower to searching
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the southern end of Lake Michigan and from like every angle, too. They've got those ground searches, boat search,
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whatever. Like divers are even in there. And with everything they're thinking like if the women did drown, like
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someone should have found something by now that indicated that. Okay. So, not drowning, but no evidence of foul play
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based on what? On the fact that that there's no evidence. But there's also no evidence that it wasn't foul play. I
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know. We I feel like we've done this like dance before. Yeah. Oh, Chuck's getting up. What do you want to do,
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Bubba? You can get down. Good job, buddy. You were a star. Anyways, the the whole idea of it not being foul play cuz
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there's no evidence of foul play. To me, that's bananas. Especially when the one
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thing that might have been the evidence of foul play has been discounted. Yeah. And listen, I get that walked off on
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their own is always a theory when you have a person go missing. But to me, it seems super far-fetched to think about
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three women with three different lives, three different sets of circumstances, all committing to disappearing at once
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on purpose. It's not not possible. It's just it's like it's way less likely. Yeah. Yeah. I think mostly they think
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this because there start to be some supposed sightings I guess like near and far one like on a bus or like in a bar
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or a club or whatever and these are like miles and miles away with strange men. Sometimes they're even seen like
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hitchhiking according to the Chicago Tribune. And all of these like they never turn out to be legit. But
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investigators run each one down and they keep coming in. So I'm sure that's playing a role here. But I also suspect
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that it has a lot to do with the letter that they found in Renee's purse, the one to her husband. So, what about the
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hot rods? Yeah, they decided basically that she may have wanted to just skip town on account of her marital discord.
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She didn't even give him the letter, though. And that does nothing to explain the other two disappearing with her. I
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know. And they obviously question the husband, by the way. Like, he's in the clear. So her loved ones are like,
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"Okay, we hear you, but also are you serious right now?" Like she's 19 years old and her feelings were hurt over like
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something you can probably work through, right? And that was weeks ago. And again, I say it has nothing to do with
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why Ann and Patricia would have left. Like they're not giving up their lives in what? Solidarity over a husband's
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hobby. Not maybe in solidarity. The Chicago Tribune reports that according to Sergeant Burke, all three, Ann and
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Patricia included, have quote unquote personal problems, but he wouldn't say what those are, which isn't to say like
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we don't know what he's getting at because long story short, what we know is that Patricia's sister Janice tells
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Dineine in a recent interview, so like we find this out way later, that Patricia had been canoodling with a
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married man and an had supposedly told friends that she was 3 months pregnant and might enter a quote unquote home for
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unwed mothers, which is very much a thing in 1966. But it is such an antiquated concept in
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like the year of our Lord 2025. Well, at least for now, that um I asked you to do
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some digging and give the crime junkies a quick explainer for the young folk listening can't know where you're going
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unless you know where you've been. Right. So, being a pregnant unwed woman in the 60s, give it to us. Obviously,
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like you said, like I knew about the concept, but I wanted to read up a little bit before this episode. So, I
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found an article on Scary Mommy, which I'll link to if you want to go deeper. There's even like a book on this. But
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basically, there were these homes where families of unmarried pregnant girls and
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women hid their daughters away while they were pregnant, so no one would have to see them because, god forbid. God
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forbid. What a shame. Where were the men who got these women and girls pregnant?
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Obviously, they were out there living their lives. The women were the ones forced to wear the scarlet letter in the
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form of that baby bump. Then once they gave birth and their babies were adopted out voluntarily or otherwise, then and
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only then could the women and girls be returned to polite society. Society. Love it. So these are supposedly some of
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the personal problems that Sergeant Burke is referring to. Although put a pin in that because we're going to
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circle back to it later. But personal problems or not, the women's families don't agree. And they are just more
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convinced by the day that the disappearances weren't by choice. And on July 14th, this is just 12 days in, that
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fear starts to gain traction when a brutal crime captures the attention of well, everyone. Now, it's very
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different, but it involves multiple young women being held and killed at a single time by a single person and from
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the same area where the women are from, Chicago. It at the time does feel worth looking into. And let me just give you a
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little like the spark notes on this case. Corki Shamashko reports for NBC News that around 11 p.m. on the night of
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July 13th, a man armed with a gun and a hunting knife climbed through the first floor window of a Chicago townhouse
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where six student nurses were sleeping in two upstairs bedrooms. He crept up the stairs, woke up all six, and coraled
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them into a third bedroom, binding their hands behind their back. and he spent the next few hours walking them out of
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the room one by one and killing them one after another. Some of them by stabbing,
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some by strangulation, and some by a combination of the two. And I don't know why this next detail bothers me so much,
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but his victims weren't even just the six women in the house when he broke in. Because three more residents had the
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great fortune of being gone when the bloodshed started and the even greater misfortune of coming home while it was
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unfolding. Jamashko writes that eight women were tortured and killed over like four and a half long hours that night.
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At least one victim was sexually assaulted, although I would wager that she probably wasn't the only one.
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Wouldn't it be nine victims if six were already there and then three came home? It would have if one woman didn't have
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the right combination of courage, quick thinking, and honestly maybe sheer luck to survive. Her name was Corazone Amaro.
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And seeing her last chance at survival, she actually crawled under one of the beds while the killer was out of the
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room. And from her hiding spot, she heard each of her roommates get marched out of the room, followed by what
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Shamosko describes as muffled cries and then silence. And somehow he just didn't
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notice. Like there were so many victims that this dude lost count. And so when Corazone crawled back out at around 6:00
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in the morning, it was just carnage. Shamashko writes that she was so traumatized and so terrified that she
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climbed onto the ledge of a second story window and just started screaming. I mean, for all she knew, the killer was
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still inside somewhere. So, once she was safe, she gave police a pretty damn detailed description of the perp right
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down to his born to raise hell tattoo. And that ends up being the key because just 2 days later, a Chicago physician
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feels his blood go cold when he sees the same four words on a patient's forearm.
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This patient was 24year-old Richard Speck. Having grown up in Texas, Speck is new to the Chicago area where he's
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been staying with his sister and her husband. And like so many killers before him, he's like, "No, officers. I swear
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to you I you have the wrong guy. Absolutely not. Which like they absolutely do not because his prints are
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all over the crime scene. Jamasco reports that the assistant DA who eventually prosecutes him for eight
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counts of capital murder gives him the dubious distinction of being the country's first random mass murderer.
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Random being the operative word since organized crime was definitely a thing in Chicago before this guy. But you get
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what I'm saying. So, this random massacre happens to a group of women from the same area just 2
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weeks after the Indiana Dunes women go missing and everyone's like, "Hey, maybe you should look at this because you got
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I truly at this point nothing else other than they walked away and nobody's buying that." ISP Superintendent Robert
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O'Neal is like, "Yeah, listen, we're checking on it, but like don't get your hopes up." And Sergeant Burke is even
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blunderter saying like there is no suggestion Speck was near. let alone at Lake Michigan the day that the women
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went missing. And even if he was, let's just say that in addition to not being a
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criminal mastermind, Spec isn't tall, dark, or handsome. And he doesn't have resources to get his hands on a boat or
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even to charm or lure three victims aboard a boat. I will admit that it's a little intriguing that he worked as what
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the Chicago History Museum calls a quote unquote apprentice seaman, but I won't waste any of your time on him. Like at
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the end of the day, it is decided by all that this is just an intriguing coincidence and nothing more. So the
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next theory that comes up, it might even be more of a stretch, I guess, is what I
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should say. And it all starts with this guy named Dick Wy who according to the New York Daily News was supposedly the
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first reporter on the scene the morning that the women were reported missing. Now, he only covered the case briefly.
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It's not like he was deeply involved. And within a few years of the disappearances, he quit journalism
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altogether and jumped into a career in law enforcement down in Florida, but he couldn't get the disappearances out of
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his mind. Like, they became his own personal Roman Empire, if you will. So, Dick Wy believes, are you ready for
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this? I'll answer it for you. No, you're not. He believes that the women died aboard an abortion boat. A what? WY is
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absolutely certain that the disappearances can be traced back to an abortion boat. You just keep repeating
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that like it's going to make more sense the second time around. What the is an abortion boat? It's exactly what it
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sounds like. He He says it's a boat on Lake Michigan where illicit abortions are performed. Is that a real thing? If
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you ask Dick Wy, yes. And the theory he has behind this abortion boat is wild. Now, we know that Anne may have been
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pregnant and that Patricia may have been seeing a married guy, right? Well, WY posits, what if Anne and Patricia were
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both pregnant by married men? Nothing to back this up, I assume. Just kind of a combining of their two possible
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scenarios. It seems that way. I like like he doesn't give any explanation other than like a what if. I'm not sure
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how or why, but basically he just says that in the course of his personal investigation, he learns that that's the
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situation. Now, he says that puts them both in a pickle because it was 196 whatever and years before Roie Wade gave
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us, you know, brief bodily autonomy before controlling women became everyone's top priority again. And we've
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already talked about what a moral stain out of wedlock pregnancies were back then. And in all seriousness, back alley
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abortions absolutely were a thing in 1966. Botched back alley abortions were too. So basically, WY believes that
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there was this married couple operating an illicit abortion clinic in Gary, Indiana. For those of you who don't
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know, that's one like on the coast of Lake Michigan near Chicago and Indiana Dunes. So like right in that area. Can
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we prove that that part is real? The this duo and their clinic? I actually have the same question. Google couldn't
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tell me. So, I reached out to the Indiana State Police. They were super duper helpful. And they confirmed that
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the couple he is talking about was a real couple. Their names are known by police, but as far as the whole illicit
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abortion operation part of it goes, police don't know. They say that they have never been able to substantiate
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that part of Wley's story. But the story goes that one of the women's procedures
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went south. Either Ann or Patricia. They died. And with this being an illegal enterprise, the other two had to just be
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disposed of. Is he saying that they did this procedure on the boat like or like the boat that picked them up and was
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supposed to take them to where the abortion would happen? Well, okay. So, supposedly that young, dark, handsome
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captain was actually this couple's relative. And the thought is that he escorted them to a larger boat. And
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remember if you like a couple of witnesses saw them on a larger boat and the thinking is maybe like that's where
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the procedures happened or were supposed to have happened. Where is WY getting all this from? This is the thing. We
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don't know. And we tried to get to the bottom of it. Believe me, because all you got to do is spend a few minutes on
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Google to realize like how wide this theory has spread. not so much in traditional reporting, more like in
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blogs and on web forums and all of that stuff. And so, of course, we thought like, okay, what better way to evaluate
00:25:28
these claims than to go straight to the source. I mean, Dick Wy is still alive and kicking. So, we did our damnedest to
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talk to him about this case. Our reporter Courtney was like straight up giddy at the prospect of interviewing
00:25:40
him. And she reached out to him on Facebook. She called every number she could find. No dice. Like, there was one
00:25:47
person she even got on the phone. when we got like a very like gruff wrong number before they hang up. So, all we
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know is that he claims to have interviewed more people more times and with more tenacity than the actual
00:26:00
investigators, he says. And based on those interviews, this is what he has uncovered. But the more we dug in, the
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more it seems like all roads on the abortion theory just lead back to WY himself. Like this man talks a big game.
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There is no doubt about that. But I don't know if he actually has the work to show like show your math, right? Like
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how did you get the answer? I don't think he's been able to do that. And he supposedly had plans to publish a book
00:26:29
on this case like since the early as there's even an Amazon listing for it still. It's called Life and Death
00:26:35
Through the Lens. And it had like a publication date way back in 2004, I think, except the book is not available.
00:26:41
Not on Amazon, not anywhere else in the worldwide web that we could find. And there's a 2012 New York Daily News
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interview with WY that references a 120,000word manuscript, but here we are like 13 years later and that manuscript
00:26:58
has yet to see the light of day. So if you're going to believe this theory, you just have to like take him at his word.
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And his word like I don't know. I think it it it bears emphasizing that WY seems
00:27:10
to be blessed with a very active imagination. His Facebook persona, for example, is like very much a conspiracy
00:27:18
obsessed angry grandpa who posts like in all caps. Cool. And you know, your girl
00:27:23
loves like a good conspiracy theory. Like that's my jam. It's who I intend on being a little bit when I'm older. But I
00:27:29
also don't want to sugarcoat the fact that his posts get really ugly at times, to put it mildly. And the man
00:27:35
specifically seems to have a mild fixation on reproductive rights in general, which I think is relevant
00:27:43
considering his theory. And I I have to give you just a little bit of context. So, I printed out one of his posts. This
00:27:50
is one of his public posts that he made on May 9th, 2021. This man is on his Just so you
00:27:57
know, I'm thrilled about having my voice recording this. Okay, this post is in all caps.
00:28:04
Literally want to wish all mothers a last Mother's Day. Yes, I said last Mother's Day. Just now over TV, the name
00:28:12
has been changed to birthing person day. I hope all you women/mothers see the respect the Democrats have for your kind
00:28:19
of devotion to America's youth. Let me be one of the first to announce support for renaming all abortion centers,
00:28:25
abortion doctors, and Planned Parenthood groups killing centers from this day forward as a last vestage of true
00:28:32
patriotic Americanism, our mothers. Yesterday, my dear aunt Shirley was buried at 90 years old, the devoted
00:28:40
mother to four wonderful children and the surrogate mother of more than 30 foster children in her busy lifetime.
00:28:47
She was more than a birthing person. She was God's angel sent to earth to become
00:28:52
a mother, not to be a murderer of children or killing centers where confused women go who don't have the
00:28:59
ability to be a mother. Thank God she was already in heaven today and didn't have to bear being demoted from a truly
00:29:06
loving mother to just another person the Democrats can add to their voter roles as a person. Sort of like changing the
00:29:13
name applied to an illegal criminal alien to a poor undocumented person. Wow. Ashley, what? And listen, not to
00:29:25
make this episode about WY or getting like to extreme ends of like either side or getting people fired up, but like I
00:29:32
don't know. I'm having a hard time holding my tongue these days, you guys. I got to say like this
00:29:36
inflammatory like I think we're all over it, right? Like everyone's working to divide us as a people because the truth
00:29:43
is we're stronger together. And if we're distracted by issues like what things are called, like we can't come together
00:29:49
on issues that matter. Like who gives a flying what the day is called? It's not hurting anybody. It doesn't take away
00:29:56
from me. I'm a mom. Like live your own life. Worry about your own damn self. Like if it makes someone like feel
00:30:01
included, great. Why would I care? I care about things that actually affect my life, my daughter's life. like the
00:30:08
fact that insurance companies are like us over right and left and basic healthc care isn't considered a human right. I
00:30:14
also don't care if it's called the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America or the Gulf of whatever. And while we're on the
00:30:20
topic of meaningless rhetoric intended to like pit people against each other. There is even a proposed resolution in
00:30:26
the House right now that expresses support for pro- women's health centers. Like I posted about this. I don't know
00:30:31
if you saw it. I did. And I sh you not. It says that like these healthc care centers are supposed to address the
00:30:37
needs of men. Women's healthcare should address the needs of men, who by the way
00:30:41
is WY is like that's who we're worried about. Like, right. Anyways, so I know I got a little sidetracked, but I wanted
00:30:49
to show you who Wy is while also saying like give us some perspective and and like I wanted to show you who he was
00:30:55
with, but also saying like let's not let the thing that Wy said take over this episode. Like I swear to God if all the
00:31:00
comments on this episode become about Mother's Day, I'm going to quit. So like I need everyone to stay
00:31:05
focused. So to bring it back to Dick Wy, that's who he is. He hasn't shown any proof of his findings that could be
00:31:14
verified by other journalists or police. While his theory might be one of the loudest ones on the internet, it is not
00:31:22
the only one. Because what if I told you that there is another theory out there?
00:31:27
one that is every bit as wild, every bit as fantastical, every bit as conspiratorial, and it is the one that
00:31:35
seems the most likely to be true. Now, to explain this theory, I need to tell you a little bit more about Ann,
00:31:42
Patricia, and Renee and their shared love of horses. I know you're a horse girl. I'm in. In fact, the Chicago
00:31:49
Tribune reports that while Patricia and Renee had been high school classmates, Patricia met Anne at the Oakbrook Polo
00:31:56
Club where they both boarded their riding horses. And Anne also worked there. In fact, at the time of the
00:32:02
disappearances, Patricia owned a racehorse named Hank. And he was one of the biggest reasons that her dad Harold
00:32:09
never like bought into the idea that the women would have like gone off on their
00:32:13
own. Even if all of the other weird [ __ ] could be explained away, which it can't.
00:32:18
So, like, there's so much that doesn't make sense. Harold knew that his daughter would not abandon Hank. It
00:32:25
wasn't possible. It was something that he said over and over and over again, including to Sergeant Burke. Like, she
00:32:32
would never have left that horse behind. You guys know how much I love Charlie. Charlie's like my mini horse. That's how
00:32:36
I feel. I was going to say I am a horse girl. I grew up with a horse that I would have never in a million years left
00:32:42
behind for anything. He was my baby. You horse girls are next level too. So anyway, so remember how I told you to
00:32:48
put a pin in the women's personal problems. Yes. Okay. So Rene's were the marital issues that we know and was this
00:32:57
potential pregnancy and I think Patricia's had to do with the wide world of horse racing.
00:33:06
So, when her sister Janice sat with Deline for an interview in 2023, she talked about some weird stuff going on
00:33:13
with Patricia at the time leading up to her disappearance, like how she was acting strangely the day before she
00:33:19
disappeared, scared even. Although Janice didn't elaborate, she also described this conversation they had had
00:33:26
recently or like before they went missing, and Patricia was crying, which alone is super out of character. Now,
00:33:33
some people are crier, some people aren't, and Patricia was not. And she told Janice that she was in a lot of
00:33:39
trouble. Janice's mind immediately went to the married boyfriend we know that she might have had. So, she asked if she
00:33:45
was pregnant. Don't tell Dick Wy. I know. But according to Janice, she wasn't pregnant. That's not it. Whatever
00:33:51
it was was worse in her mind than that because her response was quote, "I wish it was that easy." Which is saying a lot
00:33:59
in 1966. I know. And Janice wasn't the only person close to Patricia who noticed something was off before she
00:34:06
disappeared. A friend of hers had told Sergeant Burke's team way back at the beginning of the investigation about
00:34:12
this weird situation in March of that year when Patricia had some sort of like bruising on her face and the friend was
00:34:19
like, "WTF? What actually happened to your face?" I mean, it looked like she got straight up clocked. And according
00:34:25
to the Chicago Tribune, Patricia said that she was in trouble with some quote unquote syndicate people, like the mob.
00:34:32
This is where the horse mob comes in. So, get this, and I'm going to give you a little backstory for just a sec, but I
00:34:38
promise we are like coming back around and you're going to want to know this. So, apparently the 1960s equestrian
00:34:44
scene in Chicago was run by a rough crowd known as the Horse Syndicate. And at the center of this horse syndicate
00:34:52
was a man by the name of Silas Jane. Silas had been playing fast and loose in the industry since the late 1930s when
00:35:00
he opened a place called the Green Tree Stables and embarked on a long and storied career of lying, cheating, and
00:35:08
stealing his way to the top and defending his interests by any means necessary, including possibly by
00:35:15
ordering a hit on one of the nation's wealthiest aeryses in 1977. By the way, now most of his brothers were cut from
00:35:22
the same cloth, but one of them wasn't. His much younger half-brother, George. And that infuriated Silas. By 1952,
00:35:32
according to the Chicago Tribune magazine, George had also joined the stable business. And the thing was,
00:35:38
whereas Silas made his money kind of in the shadows, George made his by being a generally competent business owner. And
00:35:45
now that the brothers were competitors, that was something Silas just could not have, which led to poor George having
00:35:52
some seriously bad luck. Like in 1952 when his house went up in flames for who knows what reason while he and his
00:35:59
family were out of town. Brotherly relations took an especially dark turn after George's horse beat Silas's horse
00:36:06
at a jumping competition in the early 1960s. And before he knew it, it wasn't just George's property at risk. A hit
00:36:13
was carried out on one of his best horses and George himself was surviving brushes with death damn near on the
00:36:20
weekly. Everywhere he went, someone was trying to run him off the road or blow up his house. Like no joke, one day he
00:36:26
and his wife found dynamite affixed to their back door and it had actually fizzled out before it could cause any
00:36:32
damage. But clearly a message was trying to be sent clearly by Silus and George wasn't getting it. Now 1965 is when
00:36:42
really hit the fan. By this point, George owned Riding Stables. And one day in June of that year, George asked one
00:36:52
of his employees, a 22-year-old named Cheryl Lyn RDE, to move his car for him. So she hopped into the driver's seat,
00:36:58
turns the key in the ignition, which is when the car exploded in spectacular fashion. It had been rigged with
00:37:06
dynamite, which meant that George had just survived his most dramatic brush with death yet. But Cheryl wasn't so
00:37:13
fortunate. She was killed instantly. And for once in his life, Silas came so close to paying for it when
00:37:21
investigators convinced his hired henchmen to turn states evidence. But fast forward to March of 1966 on the eve
00:37:28
of Silus's trial on conspiracy charges. The whole case gets dropped when the prosecution star witness, one of Silas's
00:37:37
henchmen, was struck with what the Chicago Tribune Magazine reporters called a quote baffling attack of
00:37:42
amnesia. Now, this is where the women come back in. So, March of 66 is when Patricia had a busted face. the one that
00:37:51
had to do with the trouble that she was in with some syndicate people. And by the way, no one questions that the women
00:37:58
were acquainted with these guys. We know for a fact all three women rode at George's stables and Indiana State
00:38:03
Police confirmed that for us. But is Silas the married man or George? I don't get why the women are made to disappear
00:38:11
in July of ' 66. No. So, I I don't think that either of them were Patricia's Paramore. I think the guy she was dating
00:38:17
was like another shady character in the horse scene, like not even related. And we don't know for sure why someone would
00:38:24
have hit her or threatened her or whatever, but there is one possible and like the prevailing theory that I've
00:38:30
seen come from the Chicago Tribune magazine and it comes from a quote by retired Sergeant Fred Miller of the
00:38:36
Westchester PD. What he says is that there was always a strong suspicion that their disappearances had something to do
00:38:43
with the car bombing. namely that maybe one or more of the women overheard something or knew something about that
00:38:52
and that is what led to their deaths. But you'd think that something would have happened to them like before the
00:38:58
trial was set to start in March. Yeah. But I guess it depends on maybe what they knew and why or how they knew it.
00:39:06
Like I think there's a world where their importance as potential witnesses only increased once Silas's conspirators were
00:39:13
scared into submission. Maybe like I don't quite know and that's just speculation on my part, but I think it's
00:39:18
like maybe the best theory because well get this. So among all of the belongings
00:39:23
left behind and I'm talking about the women's on the beach. Investigators found not only George's phone number but
00:39:28
also a phone number for Silas's wife Martha. So like I mean clearly like they have those for a reason. And by the way,
00:39:38
guess who owned a blue and white power boat? Well, actually, I don't know exactly who, but like I don't I don't
00:39:44
have a name, which would be really helpful right now. I know. But I know that a man, an unnamed man who was
00:39:49
reported to have like supposedly once worked for Silus did own one. And supposedly this boat that he supposedly
00:39:56
owned, he often took to the Indiana Dunes. Did they find this supposed boat? No. They wish like the Kai's wife told
00:40:03
them that that boat got destroyed in a fire. Which leads me to the last kernel of information that we were able to
00:40:11
glean from ISP. They say that as of December 2024, so like 5 minutes ago. Yeah. They no longer dismiss the
00:40:19
possibility that the boat wreckage that washed ashore way back in 1966 was related to the women's disappearances.
00:40:26
So much for that whole like spontaneously combusting rowboat thing, right? And I wish I could wrap this
00:40:32
story up with a pretty bow. But what that leaves us with are family members like Patricia's sister Janice who are
00:40:38
running out of time to learn the truth about what happened to their loved ones way back in 1966.
00:40:45
So, if you have any information about what happened that day on the shores of Lake Michigan, please contact the
00:40:52
Westchester Police Department at 78345006. And if you're as offended as I am by House Resolution 7, head on over
00:41:04
to congress.gov/cont- us to find your representatives contact information and tell them that women's healthcare should
00:41:12
be about women. Novel concept, right? You can find all the source material for this episode on our website,
00:41:18
crimejunkypodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram, crimejunkie podcast. We'll be back with
00:41:24
another video episode, but don't forget we have hundreds of podcast episodes. Just search for Crime Junkie wherever
00:41:30
you get your podcasts. [Music]