During the late 1950s, Elvis Presley was the King of Rock and Roll. He could melt hearts with his dark hair, good looks and amazing voice. Two of his biggest fans were sisters Barbara Jeanne Grimes, 15, and Patricia Kathleen Grimes, 12. The girls loved Elvis and had seen his “Love me Tender” movie over ten times.
On December 28, 1956, the sisters had pooled together a couple of dollars and planned on attending another “Love me Tender” showing at the Brighton Theater. The sisters left for the evening around 7:30 p.m.
They never returned home.
Loretta Grimes expected her daughters to return before midnight. By 11:45 p.m., she became worried. She sent two of her other children to wait by the closest bus stop. The two siblings waited for their sisters to arrive. Unfortunately, the two siblings returned home without Barbara and Patricia.
Panic spread throughout the Grimes home. Loretta’s motherly instincts kicked in. She knew her girls were in danger. She called the police and reported her daughters missing on the 29th around 2 a.m. The disappearance of the sisters became one of Chicago’s most infamous cold cases. Over a hundred police officers spent thousands of hours trying to locate the missing girls.
The police thought the girls may have run away. Loretta Grimes, however, knew her daughters. They had left with just enough money for the movie and would not have abandoned their family or left their Christmas gifts behind.
Word had gotten out to Elvis Presley about the missing girls. He made a public television announcement and also went on the radio and asked the girls to return home. Unfortunately, even the great Elvis Presley couldn’t have saved the girls from their horrific fate.
On January 22, 1957, a man named Leonard Prescott was driving to a local grocery store. Along the way, he passed what he thought were two mannequins laying in the snow. He went home to get his wife. The couple returned to the scene and located the deceased bodies of Barbara and Patricia Grimes. The girls were nude and frozen from the cold.
According to the autopsy report, the girls had likely died on the day they were taken. The autopsy revealed the sisters still had food from their final meals in their stomachs. The official death ruling stated the sisters died from exposure to the elements. I consider this unlikely, because they were probably already dead before their bodies were dumped. Coroner Walter McCarron received much criticism for his findings.
The girls were buried at the Holy Sepulchre Catholic Cemetery next to Leona Freck, their sister. Unfortunately, the case remains unsolved.
Loretta Grimes never recovered from losing her daughters. She continued to hope the police would capture the man who had killed her daughters. She was 83 when she died in 1989. She went to her grave without knowing who killed her beloved daughters. Although the police rounded up a few suspects, they never charged anyone with the murders. Today, a former Chicago police officer named Raymond Johnson is knowledgeable about the case and believes the case can is solvable.
Johnson has made claims that a man named Charles Melquist most likely killed the sisters. He was a good suspect because he lived in the area and had previously killed a woman named Bonnie Leigh Scott. Melquist received a 99-year sentence, but he made parole and only served a short prison stint.
Johnson and others who have investigated the case believe there were similarities between the deaths of Bonnie Leigh Scott and the Grimes sisters. Melquist has since died and was never charged with killing the sisters. Although the case has been cold for many decades, it would bring great comfort to the family if someone could provide a tip that could solve this case.
Marc is a longtime resident of Clermont County and an avid reader. Contact him through his website at www.themarcabe.com or through Facebook: www.Facebook.com/themarcabe or his Twitter account @themarcabe. Marc also has a podcast called Catch my Killer where he interviews family members seeking justice for their murdered loved ones. You can listen at www.catchmykiller.com.