The Murders of the Grimes Sisters
On December 28, 1956, fifteen-year-old Barbara Grimes and thirteen-year-old Patricia Grimes left their home on Chicago's South Side to see a showing of "Love Me Tender," an Elvis Presley film, at a movie theater about a mile away. They never returned home. Their disappearance triggered one of the largest missing persons searches in Chicago history; Elvis Presley himself issued a public plea for their safe return, asking any fans who might be sheltering them to send them home. Thousands of tips poured into police over the following weeks, but the girls were not found.
On January 22, 1957, the naked and frozen bodies of both girls were discovered along a remote rural road in Cook County, Illinois. The cause of death could not be definitively established due to the extent of decomposition from exposure; the medical examiner's findings were contested. Police initially believed the girls had been held alive for some time before their deaths, which made the murder particularly chilling. The investigation became a major focus of the Chicago Police Department and generated enormous press coverage.
A drifter named Edward Lee Bedwell confessed to the murders in 1957 and was charged, but he recanted and was ultimately never convicted; the confession was found unreliable under scrutiny. A teenager named Max Fleig was also seriously investigated. Despite years of investigation involving hundreds of suspects, no one was ever charged and the case remains officially unsolved. Chicago investigators periodically reviewed the files over the following decades without making an arrest.
The Grimes Sisters case is one of Chicago's most haunting cold cases, remembered not only for the tragedy of two young girls killed at the height of early rock and roll but for the extraordinary public response their disappearance generated. The case is a touchstone of 1950s Chicago crime history and has been the subject of renewed amateur investigation by true crime researchers. The identities and whereabouts of whoever abducted and killed Barbara and Patricia Grimes have never been established.