May 21, 2023 • 31 mins
This episode is our first foray into Indiana. We delve into the 1966 disappearances of three young women from Chicago, who were last seen at Indiana Dunes State Park on Lake Michigan.
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All music by Kai Engel licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For more info, please visit https://www.kai-engel.com/.
Produced, written, edited, and hosted by Steve from Great Lakes True Crime.
SOURCES:
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/cold-case-spotlight/happened-three-young-sunbathers-disappeared-indiana-dunes-state-park-5-rcna69110
https://charleyproject.org/case/patricia-blough
https://icestationpoetry.medium.com/what-is-the-likeliest-solution-to-the-indiana-dunes-mystery-45492c60ec42
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-06-21-8702170368-story.html
https://icestationpoetry.medium.com/what-is-the-likeliest-solution-to-the-indiana-dunes-mystery-45492c60ec42
https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/15/us/indiana-sand-dune-boy/index.html
Buy Me Coffee (please!) - https://paypal.me/greatlakestruecrime
Website - www.greatlakestruecrime.net
TwitterX - https://twitter.com/greatlakescrime
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/greatlakescrime
Five-star reviews really help and are always appreciated
All music by Kai Engel licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For more info, please visit https://www.kai-engel.com/.
Produced, written, edited, and hosted by Steve from Great Lakes True Crime.
SOURCES:
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/cold-case-spotlight/happened-three-young-sunbathers-disappeared-indiana-dunes-state-park-5-rcna69110
https://charleyproject.org/case/patricia-blough
https://icestationpoetry.medium.com/what-is-the-likeliest-solution-to-the-indiana-dunes-mystery-45492c60ec42
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-06-21-8702170368-story.html
https://icestationpoetry.medium.com/what-is-the-likeliest-solution-to-the-indiana-dunes-mystery-45492c60ec42
https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/15/us/indiana-sand-dune-boy/index.html
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
On July second, nineteen sixty six, nineteen year old Patricia Blow, nineteen
year old Reneepril, and twenty oneyear old Anne Miller, three friends from
the Chicago area, took a daytrip to the beach at Indiana Dunes State
Park on Lake Michigan in northern Indiana. It was the first day of what
was to be a long festive Julyfourth weekend. At some point that day,
(00:24):
however, the three young women seeminglyvanished into thin air, never to
be seen again from the south shoreof Lake Erie. This is Great Lake's
true crime. That hot summer morning, Anne Miller drove her four door Buick
(00:58):
to pick up Patricia at her homeon Drury Lane in Westchester, Illinois around
eight am. Patricia, or Pattyas her friends knew her, told her
mom that the three women would behome in the early evening so that Renee,
the only married one of the three, could make dinner for her husband.
After Anne picked up Patricia, thetwo drove to get Renee at her
(01:21):
house on the west side of Chicago. On the way to the Dunes,
the three women stopped at a drugstore to buy some suntan lotion, which
is what we used to call sunscreenbefore it actually helped prevent sunburns. They
finally arrived at Indiana Dune's State Parkaround ten o'clock that morning, when it
was already eighty eight degrees out.After parking Anne's buick, they made a
(01:46):
long trek to a spot on thebeach about a hundred yards from the water.
It was already crowded. According topark officials, about eight thousand,
six hundred people were at the beachthat day, and over two thousand cars
were parked in the lot. Theyoung women staked out a good spot under
(02:07):
three cottonwood trees and spread their blanketon the side of a dune. They
then peeled down to their swimsuits.Anne, a five foot two inch brunette
with blue eyes, was wearing ablue two piece bathing suit with a red
belt. Paddy, five feet fourinches with brown hair and brown eyes,
(02:29):
wore a bright yellow bikini with rufflesand renee. The tallest of the three,
at five feet nine inches with brownhair and hazel eyes, had on
a brown swimsuit with a pattern ofgreen flowers and gold leaves. A young
Chicago couple named Mike and Francis sawthe women leave their belongings on the beach
(02:50):
around noon when they went for aswim. A little while later, the
couple saw them talking to a youngman who had a small boat in the
Lake Michigan water. It was afourteen to sixteen foot white boat with a
blue interior and an outboard motor.That same couple was still at the beach
at nightfall, and they noticed thatthe three women never returned to where their
(03:14):
belongings were on the beach, sothey flagged down a park ranger named Bud
Counter and reported that they were concernedthat the women never came back. There
was a fair amount of personal belongingsleft behind, suggesting the three definitely planned
on returning to their spot on thebeach. Patricia left behind a yellow robe,
(03:35):
a pair of sunglasses, a batteryoperated radio, beach towel, and
her wallet, which had five dollarsin it. Anne left a thermos bottle,
her denim shorts, a shirt,shoes, and hair brush, while
Renee left a large beach towel,her shorts, shirt, a pack of
cigarettes, that bottle of suntan lotion, a small amount of cash, and
(03:57):
her purse, which had about fiftyfive dollars in checks in it. Ranger
Bud carefully picked up the blanket byits corners and took everything on it to
the office a park superintendent, Williams. Fedeck. The two men figured they
would safeguard the belongings in the officeuntil the women came back to claim him.
(04:19):
During the busy holiday weekend, thebelongings got set aside and forgotten about
while parkstaff tended to their jobs.Early in the morning of Monday, July
fourth, Superintendent Spedeck got a telephonecall from Patty's worried father, Harold Blow.
Harold was looking into the whereabouts thethree young women. He said they
(04:40):
had left home around eight o'clock Saturdaymorning and should have arrived at the park
about ten o'clock, but they nevercame home that night and never called.
Suspecting there might be a connection betweenHarold's phone call and the items that he
remembered were left on the beach twodays earlier, Spededeck took another look at
the items left behind on the beachblanket. Along with the other items described
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earlier, there was a key ringwith a miniature Illinois license plate on it
with the number two six five,dash four eight seven, Sveedeck asked his
staff to check the parking lot,where they found that, sure enough,
there was a nineteen fifty five buickwith license plates matching the number on that
key ring. At eight fifty am. That morning, Superintendent Sveedeck called
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the Indiana State Police, who hada post about three miles south of the
state park. At ten am onJuly fourth, Trooper Harry Young arrived at
the park to investigate. He tookpossession of the women's items left at the
beach, including the miniature key ring. Trooper Young next contacted Chicago Police and
asked them to run a check onthe car's license plate. About twenty minutes
(05:55):
later, Chicago police notified the Indianatrooper that the plates were read to Anne
Miller of suburban Westchester, Illinois.A check with the Westchester Police revealed that
a missing person's report had been filedon Anne and her two friends by family
members the night before. At thispoint, all involved parties knew that they
(06:16):
were dealing with the serious matter.They could no longer write this off as
young people out all night partying withfriends, so now they brought in the
big guns, starting with a thirtynine year old Indiana State Police detective named
Sergeant Edward Burke. Burke was regardedas one of the brightest minds in the
department, and he headed to thestate park to try to piece together what
(06:40):
had happened. Burke interviewed park employees, inventory the items left behind on the
blanket, and searched the women's car. He found some additional clothes and shoes
belonging to the women inside. Bythree fifty pm on that July fourth,
Sergeant Burke was convinced that the womenwere nowhere in the area, so he
(07:01):
alerted the US Coastguard and requested asearch of the southern end of Lake Michigan.
This would not be an easy task. The Coastguard estimated that on July
second alone, the day the girlswent missing, there were between five thousand
and six thousand boats in that areaof Lake Michigan. The task of singling
(07:23):
out the boat the girls were onwould be next to impossible. It was
not lost on Sergeant Burke that twodays had already passed since the disappearance,
and each passing day would make itexponentially more difficult to figure out what had
happened. Witnesses would scatter or startforgetting things, and the wind and weather
(07:45):
would wipe away possible clues in theconstantly shifting sand dunes. So Burke ordered
a thorough search of the twenty onehundred acre park and the shoreline to the
east early in the morning of Julyfifth. The search would extend all the
way to the Indiana Michigan border.Coordinating the search where Park superintendent's Edek and
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First Sergeant Albert Hartman of the IndianaState Police. Search parties including forty two
soldier volunteers from a nearby army baseand ten members of the Porter County Sheriff's
Posse on horseback, searched across themassive dunes, through the park's thick woods,
(08:28):
and across prairies and meadows containing anumber of rare and sensitive plant species.
The investigators also took another look atthe women's belongings, and when searching
through Renee's purse, they discovered thefirst sign that perhaps the disappearances were not
accidental. Remember, Renee was theonly married one in the group, and
her purse contained an unmailed letter toher husband of fifteen months, Jeffrey.
(08:54):
This letter, which was written twoweeks earlier to the twenty one year old
accounting student basically said that Renee wantedto leave him. Apparently, Jeffrey spent
a little too much time with hisfriends working on cars instead of spending time
with his young wife. For whateverreason, However, it seems that the
letter was never given to Jeffrey.Did he see it somehow, though we
(09:18):
don't know. Police, of course, brought Jeffrey in for questioning, but
he maintained there were no problems betweenthe two newlyweds. Members of Renee's family
also discounted the significance of the letter, suggesting Renee may have written it while
she was upset but later decided notto give it to Jeffrey. She might
(09:39):
have even forgotten that she still hadit. As darkness descended upon the park,
Sergeant Burke ordered a beech buggy topatrol the shoreline throughout the night for
a grim reason. Enough days hadnow passed that if the young women drowned,
their bodies would float to the water'ssurface. The buggy patrolled all night,
(10:01):
but no bodies or other evidence wasfound. The next day, Wednesday,
July sixth, the search shifted toan area west of the state park.
As a result of several telephone tipsreceived by authorities. The search area
extended west to the small but wealthytown of Ogden Dunes. Several people claimed
(10:26):
they saw three young women that Saturdayget on a boat and headed west.
The boat was said to have hadonly one person at it aside from the
women, who was a man describedas being well tanned, in his early
twenties and with dark wavy hair.The witnesses recalled that one of the women
was wearing a yellow swimsuit and positivelyidentified photographs of the women as the people
(10:52):
they had seen aboard the watercraft.In addition to the Sheriff's posse, a
massive group of volunteers helped out withthe search, over a hundred people in
total. On a side note,you don't hear much about Sheriff's posses anymore.
It seems like the world might bea better place if we still had
(11:13):
them. Anyway. On that Julysixth, the search took a major turn
when some wreckage from a boat washedup along the Lake Michigan shore, about
three miles down drift from where thethree were last seen. Among the debris
found was foam and metal from boatseats, oil and gas cans and some
wood believed to be from a boat. The debris was not too far from
(11:37):
a water intake crib that extended abouta quarter mile out into the lake.
Police suspected that a boat smashed intothe large crib structure. Although the Coastguard
had not received any reports of amissing boat that weekend, that doesn't necessarily
mean it didn't happen. A CivilAir Patrol plane flew over the area and
searched for more debris, but alsocame up empty. The intensive search resumed
(12:01):
the next day and included Civil AirPatrol planes from two different locations, searching
as far north as Chicago. Coastguardboats were also back at it, searching
the Lake Michigan shore in Illinois,Indiana, and southern Michigan. These searchers
would continue uninterrupted for a solid week, and it was intense. The Coastguard
(12:24):
at Loane used ten boats, oneairplane, and a helicopter, while the
Civil Air Patrol deployed a minimum offour aircraft throughout the search. On top
of that, the US Army hadtwo helicopters searching from air, while dozens
of scuba divers searched the water.The State Park asked anyone with bloodhounds to
(12:45):
bring them to the park to helpin the search, and also asked owners
of nearby private cabins to check theirproperties for any sign of the missing beach
goers. The Sheriff's office searched overtwo hundred fifty cabins, and neither talked
to the occupants or looked inside throughthe windows of each of them. Superintendent
Svedek made a public appeal for anyonewho might have seen the three women to
(13:09):
contact him at park headquarters, andthe public responded. He received over a
hundred calls. Most of the reportswere dismissed fairly quickly, but some others
were looked into but ultimately were deadends. Authorities still didn't have a lot
to go on, but they werepretty certain that the women had gone into
the water, either for a swimor a boat ride. So far,
(13:33):
we have found nothing to indicate foulplay, said Sergeant Burke on the fourth
day of the search. But nothinghas been found to indicate what else might
have happened to them. Police learnedthat Patricia and Renee were strong swimmers,
while Anne was described as a fairswimmer. This seemed to make it unlikely
(13:54):
that all three of them drowned.Patricia, for one, was said to
have been capable of swimming twenty tothirty miles. The families of the three
women could think of no one theyknew who owned a boat, and stressed
that the women were not into boating. Actually, all three of them were
horse rack riding enthusiasts land lovers.Patricia actually owned her own horse, a
(14:18):
Thoroughbred named Hank, which at themoment was at a racetrack near Winnipeg,
Manitoba. In Canada. She workedas a secretary at Commonwealth Edison, the
local electric utility. It was whilegrowing up in Wisconsin, where Patricia spent
her summers at her parents lake cottage, that she had developed into an expert
(14:39):
swimmer, but horses were her reallove. Before acquiring Hank, she owned
a saddle horse which she boarded inthe same stable where Anne kept her horse.
That's how the two became friends.Anne had a job exercising horses at
the oak Brook Polo Club, whichis to this day one of the the
(15:00):
most elite polo clubs in the UnitedStates. Renee had been a high school
classmate of Patricia's. After graduation,she completed a one year course at a
medical technology school in Chicago. Asthe search continued, police received another large
batch of calls after the women's parentsmade a public plea for information. Various
(15:24):
callers who had seen their photographs inarea newspapers reported having seen them in Michigan,
Illinois, and Wisconsin. Some ofthe callers who had been at the
beach that day of the disappearance saidthey had seen the three get into a
boat with three men. Other callersremembered it as two men, and another
one said there was only one man. The state police checked out every lead,
(15:48):
and for a while it seemed likethe best lead was a lifeguard who
told investigators he had seen the womenget into a boat with three men Award
the next day, however, thelifeguard told police he did not think they
were the same girls. In theend, police considered the best lead to
be the original one from the teenageboy and girl, who told connors about
(16:11):
seeing the women get into a smallboat containing one man. The story was
backed up by other witnesses as well, so it had some merit to it.
Let's take a quick break. OnThursday, j Ly seventh, the
US Coastguards spoke with three men fromnearby Michigan City, Indiana, who said
(16:33):
they spoke for a while with threewomen at the beach while on their boat.
They asked the women to go ona boat ride with them, but
the women turned them down. I'mmarried, I can't go, one of
the women explained. Of note tothe coastguards men, though, was that
when this interaction took place, thethree women were standing in what was described
as chin deep water. Now thatis really deep water to be standing in.
(17:00):
This report renewed speculation that the threemay have drowned after all, rather
than having gotten in a boat accident. So once again out came the scuba
divers. They searched Thursday evening andthroughout the night and all day Friday,
but came up with nothing. Atthis point, I am ninety percent sure
they were victims of accidental drowning,Superintendent Sveedic stated, But Sergeant Burke was
(17:26):
not convinced. He recalled that thethree of them were all very good swimmers,
so this possibility, in his mindwas very remote. He also didn't
think they were in a boating accident. The two remaining possibilities, at least
the two most likely remaining possibilities,were that either the women somehow met with
(17:47):
foul play, or they all ranaway together. Running away seemed pretty unlikely,
though all three women did have sometype of problems in their personal lives,
as just about everybody does, butnone was considered significant enough to run
away from. Aside from that,they left behind their purses, shoes,
(18:07):
and lots of other personal items,so this led Sergeant Burke and others to
start seriously considering the possibility that someonedid something bad to these women, and
as investigators reached the one week periodthat the women had been missing, the
official searches were essentially called off.There seemed to be no chance that they
(18:29):
were anywhere in the park or thenearby vicinity. This was now a matter
of detective work, questioning everyone connectedto the women to see if they could
figure out what had happened. Patricia'sfather, Harold Blow, refused to give
up though. Harold was a lieutenantcolonel in the Illinois Civil Air Patrol,
and he continued his own search byairplane for the missing girls. With a
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couple of his colleagues. They flewback and forth over the beach and nearby
areas, taking aerial photographs that Haroldwould examine endlessly looking for anything that might
explain what happened to his daughter andher friends. Harold was not convinced that
Patty had run away either. Heknew there was no way she wouldn't contact
him if she could. There wasalso the matter of her racehorse, Hank.
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Hank had won nine hundred dollars ina race that weekend in Winnipeg,
Manitoba. Annie won another race twoweeks earlier, but nobody ever collected the
winnings for either Victory. Renee Brule'sfather, Joseph Snecco, was very confident
that the three were still alive.Joseph's theory was that, for one reason
or another, the women had voluntarilyleft the idea and were too frightened to
(19:42):
return after seeing all the fuss causedby their disappearance. Basically, they were
too embarrassed to show their faces again. It turns out that a local man
had been filming some scenes at thebeach that July fourth, and made his
films available to star Burke. Fromthose movies, the potential boats of interests
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were narrowed down to two. Onetwenty six to twenty eight foot cabin cruiser
with three men on board. Anda smaller sailboat that was about sixteen to
eighteen feet in length with only oneman on board. So this goes along
with what witnesses had been saying,and from those witness statements in the film,
it was thought that the girls wereseen in the smaller boat, with
(20:26):
Patties sitting up front next to thedriver of the boat, and the other
two sitting in the back. Infact, investigators had no question that the
three women were aboard that small sailboatthat day, but Sergeant Burke also believed
that the three may have gotten intothe larger boat. Later that afternoon,
(20:47):
witnesses said the women were walking onthe beach getting something to eat, and
then headed off into the dunes.This presented the thought that they may have
come back to the beach in thesailboat and then way for the man who
had that larger cabin cruiser. Patty'sfather continued his air searches and made public
pleas for any information regarding the whereaboutsof his daughter. At the same time,
(21:12):
investigators learned that all three of themissing women had some secrets that their
families didn't know about. As wesaid, Renee was apparently having marital problems.
While it seems that Patricia and Anne, through their interest in racehorses,
had some criminal histories, or atleast dealing with people with criminal histories,
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horse racing, especially back in thenineteen sixties, could certainly draw out some
seedy characters, so this was aconcern. In fact, about four months
before the disappearance, some of Patricia'sfriends noticed an injury to her face that
looked like the result of a paunchor an assault. When they asked her
about it, Patricia admitted that shehad some trouble with quote some syndicate people
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that she knew. Patricia was alsoknown to have a boyfriend named John Paul
Jones, described as an ex convictand rodeo cowboy. F PIO agents interviewed
Jones twice in California, where helived at the time. Jones confirmed that
he previously had a relationship with Patricia, but vehemently denied any knowledge of her
(22:23):
whereabouts. Patricia, Anne, andRenee frequently rode horses at a stable in
Palatine, Illinois. The stables wherethey rode were owned by a local horse
dealer named George Jane. George andhis half brother, Silas Jane had recently
been involved in a bitter dispute overhorse stealing. When a young woman named
(22:47):
Cheryl Anne Rude was killed at thestable where the girls rode horses in June
nineteen sixty five by a car bomb, a bomb which was intended for George
Jane, the stable owner. Georgehad asked Sheryl to move his Cadillac form
when the bomb exploded, a real, wrong time, wrong place kind of
situation. Unfortunately, George was prettycertain that the bomb was not only intended
(23:11):
to kill him, but was placedthere by Silas. How does this fit
with the young women's disappearances. Well, the theory was that perhaps through their
frequent presence at the stable, theymay have either witnessed the bomb being planted,
or somehow had some other connection tothis incident. This theory could explain
Patricia's odd remarks about her facial injuryfrom March nineteen sixty six and her connection
(23:37):
to syndicate people. It has neverbeen proven, though George and Silas's phone
numbers were discovered in the belongings ofone of the missing women in nineteen sixty
six, so they definitely knew them. George Jane was killed by a gunshot
in nineteen seventy and his brother Silaswas later convicted of conspiracy in his half
(23:59):
brother's murder and was sent to prison, a prison where he died of leukemia
in nineteen eighty seven. Silas wasalso suspected in another murder, so these
were certainly dangerous people they were dealingwith at the stable. Silas was a
particularly bad guy, heavily involved inthe organized crime world of Chicago. He's
said to have been a bully,extortionist, thief, and perhaps murderer.
(24:25):
He actually bragged about serving time inprison for murder, although in actuality he
had not at the time of hisbragging. Even if George and Silas wanted
to murder the three young women,though, it's very unlikely that a the
killers knew they were going to thebeach on that July second b they followed
them to the beach, which againwas over an hour drive away, and
(24:48):
C they decided to kill three womenat a very crowded beach on a busy
July fourth weekend, perhaps on aboat that they somehow knew the girls would
get on. It just doesn't addup. The months began to pass by,
and while people kept looking for thewomen. No solid leads came up.
(25:11):
A few people reported potentially seeing oneor more of the women, but
those leads ultimately led nowhere. Laterthat year, on the outside chance that
the three women were still alive andliving elsewhere, their families printed five thousand
missing person flyers containing previously unpublished picturesof their daughters and sent them to friends
(25:33):
and relatives in other states throughout theUnited States. The flyers were also distributed
by police departments in Florida, Arizona, California, and other states that had
major horse tracks. Still, nothingcame up nothing Since then, the case
remains open to this day. SergeantBurke retired in nineteen seventy one after twenty
(26:00):
one years with the Indiana State Police. He spent the next four years working
for the US government as a policeadvisor in South Vietnam and was among the
last Americans evacuated from Saigon in nineteenseventy five. From there, he went
to Saudi Arabia to work as headof security for a hospital. So Burke
(26:21):
certainly lived an adventurous life, butsadly couldn't find the missing women. Harold
Blow, the father who refused togive up hope eventually retired and moved to
Florida, but kept in touch withSergeant Burke while he was in Saudi Arabia,
exchanging theories about the case. Butto this day, no one knows
what happened to Patricia, Anne andRenee. There are a number of theories
(26:47):
out there, some we already wentover, but some of them seem more
plausible than others. Some of thetheories are One, they were involved in
a horrible boating accident that left nophysical trace of anyone aboard. No boats
were reported missing that weekend, butit's still not out of the realm of
possibility. Two, they were victimsof an abduction that turned to murder aboard
(27:12):
the boat. Three, the threewomen died, possibly by murder, after
they voluntarily disappeared or ran away.Four, Anne's pregnancy might have led to
an abortion death, possibly at sea, and her two friends were killed to
(27:32):
keep them from reporting it. Andthe fifth theory. The fifth theory is
that the three women were swallowed upby a giant sinkle in the massive sand
dunes. While very unlikely, somethinglike this has happened before. In twenty
thirteen, a six year old boywas swallowed whole by a sand dune at
(27:53):
the nearby Indiana Dunes National Park.It took rescuers three and a half hours
to dig out the boy, whowas placed on a ventilator in a Chicago
hospital where he stayed for ten days. Fortunately, the boy made a full
recovery, but this is after peopleknew that he went into the sinkhole.
(28:15):
In any case, it's unlikely thatthe three adult women would simultaneously sink into
the sand dunes. It just doesn'tseem likely. So that brings us back
to the two most likely scenarios,one being that the three women drowned,
or the other being that the threewomen met with foul play. If it
were a drowning, it's likely thatat least one of the bodies, if
(28:37):
not all three, would have eventuallybeen found, but it is still a
possibility. In any case, allof the theories have holes in them.
Nothing seems to add up, buthopefully the case will yet be solved someday.
Patricia Blow and Renee Brule would beseventy six years old this year.
(28:57):
Anne Miller would be seventy eight.Anyone with information on the disappearances of Patricia
Blow, Renee Rule, and AnneMiller should contact the Indiana State Police.
If you know something anything, it'snot too late to report it. I'd
(29:17):
like to know what you think happenedto these three young ladies. Head over
to our Facebook page to discuss.I'm curious to see what you're thinking.
And that's all for this episode ofGreat Lakes True Crime. You can follow
the show on Facebook and Twitter justsearch for Great Lakes True Crime. You
can also check out links in theshow notes for sources and the show merchandise
(29:40):
page. Also, many thanks tothose who left positive reviews for the show.
That's one way to really help usout. And if you do like
the show, please tell a friendabout it. You can email me at
Great Lakes Truecrime at gmail dot comwith any thoughts or case suggestions you may
have for Great Lakes True Crime.This has been Steve, your host and
(30:03):
producer. Thanks for listening. Byes
On July second, nineteen sixty six, nineteen year old Patricia Blow, nineteen
year old Reneepril, and twenty oneyear old Anne Miller, three friends from
the Chicago area, took a daytrip to the beach at Indiana Dunes State
Park on Lake Michigan in northern Indiana. It was the first day of what
was to be a long festive Julyfourth weekend. At some point that day,
(00:24):
however, the three young women seeminglyvanished into thin air, never to
be seen again from the south shoreof Lake Erie. This is Great Lake's
true crime. That hot summer morning, Anne Miller drove her four door Buick
(00:58):
to pick up Patricia at her homeon Drury Lane in Westchester, Illinois around
eight am. Patricia, or Pattyas her friends knew her, told her
mom that the three women would behome in the early evening so that Renee,
the only married one of the three, could make dinner for her husband.
After Anne picked up Patricia, thetwo drove to get Renee at her
(01:21):
house on the west side of Chicago. On the way to the Dunes,
the three women stopped at a drugstore to buy some suntan lotion, which
is what we used to call sunscreenbefore it actually helped prevent sunburns. They
finally arrived at Indiana Dune's State Parkaround ten o'clock that morning, when it
was already eighty eight degrees out.After parking Anne's buick, they made a
(01:46):
long trek to a spot on thebeach about a hundred yards from the water.
It was already crowded. According topark officials, about eight thousand,
six hundred people were at the beachthat day, and over two thousand cars
were parked in the lot. Theyoung women staked out a good spot under
(02:07):
three cottonwood trees and spread their blanketon the side of a dune. They
then peeled down to their swimsuits.Anne, a five foot two inch brunette
with blue eyes, was wearing ablue two piece bathing suit with a red
belt. Paddy, five feet fourinches with brown hair and brown eyes,
(02:29):
wore a bright yellow bikini with rufflesand renee. The tallest of the three,
at five feet nine inches with brownhair and hazel eyes, had on
a brown swimsuit with a pattern ofgreen flowers and gold leaves. A young
Chicago couple named Mike and Francis sawthe women leave their belongings on the beach
(02:50):
around noon when they went for aswim. A little while later, the
couple saw them talking to a youngman who had a small boat in the
Lake Michigan water. It was afourteen to sixteen foot white boat with a
blue interior and an outboard motor.That same couple was still at the beach
at nightfall, and they noticed thatthe three women never returned to where their
(03:14):
belongings were on the beach, sothey flagged down a park ranger named Bud
Counter and reported that they were concernedthat the women never came back. There
was a fair amount of personal belongingsleft behind, suggesting the three definitely planned
on returning to their spot on thebeach. Patricia left behind a yellow robe,
(03:35):
a pair of sunglasses, a batteryoperated radio, beach towel, and
her wallet, which had five dollarsin it. Anne left a thermos bottle,
her denim shorts, a shirt,shoes, and hair brush, while
Renee left a large beach towel,her shorts, shirt, a pack of
cigarettes, that bottle of suntan lotion, a small amount of cash, and
(03:57):
her purse, which had about fiftyfive dollars in checks in it. Ranger
Bud carefully picked up the blanket byits corners and took everything on it to
the office a park superintendent, Williams. Fedeck. The two men figured they
would safeguard the belongings in the officeuntil the women came back to claim him.
(04:19):
During the busy holiday weekend, thebelongings got set aside and forgotten about
while parkstaff tended to their jobs.Early in the morning of Monday, July
fourth, Superintendent Spedeck got a telephonecall from Patty's worried father, Harold Blow.
Harold was looking into the whereabouts thethree young women. He said they
(04:40):
had left home around eight o'clock Saturdaymorning and should have arrived at the park
about ten o'clock, but they nevercame home that night and never called.
Suspecting there might be a connection betweenHarold's phone call and the items that he
remembered were left on the beach twodays earlier, Spededeck took another look at
the items left behind on the beachblanket. Along with the other items described
(05:01):
earlier, there was a key ringwith a miniature Illinois license plate on it
with the number two six five,dash four eight seven, Sveedeck asked his
staff to check the parking lot,where they found that, sure enough,
there was a nineteen fifty five buickwith license plates matching the number on that
key ring. At eight fifty am. That morning, Superintendent Sveedeck called
(05:29):
the Indiana State Police, who hada post about three miles south of the
state park. At ten am onJuly fourth, Trooper Harry Young arrived at
the park to investigate. He tookpossession of the women's items left at the
beach, including the miniature key ring. Trooper Young next contacted Chicago Police and
asked them to run a check onthe car's license plate. About twenty minutes
(05:55):
later, Chicago police notified the Indianatrooper that the plates were read to Anne
Miller of suburban Westchester, Illinois.A check with the Westchester Police revealed that
a missing person's report had been filedon Anne and her two friends by family
members the night before. At thispoint, all involved parties knew that they
(06:16):
were dealing with the serious matter.They could no longer write this off as
young people out all night partying withfriends, so now they brought in the
big guns, starting with a thirtynine year old Indiana State Police detective named
Sergeant Edward Burke. Burke was regardedas one of the brightest minds in the
department, and he headed to thestate park to try to piece together what
(06:40):
had happened. Burke interviewed park employees, inventory the items left behind on the
blanket, and searched the women's car. He found some additional clothes and shoes
belonging to the women inside. Bythree fifty pm on that July fourth,
Sergeant Burke was convinced that the womenwere nowhere in the area, so he
(07:01):
alerted the US Coastguard and requested asearch of the southern end of Lake Michigan.
This would not be an easy task. The Coastguard estimated that on July
second alone, the day the girlswent missing, there were between five thousand
and six thousand boats in that areaof Lake Michigan. The task of singling
(07:23):
out the boat the girls were onwould be next to impossible. It was
not lost on Sergeant Burke that twodays had already passed since the disappearance,
and each passing day would make itexponentially more difficult to figure out what had
happened. Witnesses would scatter or startforgetting things, and the wind and weather
(07:45):
would wipe away possible clues in theconstantly shifting sand dunes. So Burke ordered
a thorough search of the twenty onehundred acre park and the shoreline to the
east early in the morning of Julyfifth. The search would extend all the
way to the Indiana Michigan border.Coordinating the search where Park superintendent's Edek and
(08:07):
First Sergeant Albert Hartman of the IndianaState Police. Search parties including forty two
soldier volunteers from a nearby army baseand ten members of the Porter County Sheriff's
Posse on horseback, searched across themassive dunes, through the park's thick woods,
(08:28):
and across prairies and meadows containing anumber of rare and sensitive plant species.
The investigators also took another look atthe women's belongings, and when searching
through Renee's purse, they discovered thefirst sign that perhaps the disappearances were not
accidental. Remember, Renee was theonly married one in the group, and
her purse contained an unmailed letter toher husband of fifteen months, Jeffrey.
(08:54):
This letter, which was written twoweeks earlier to the twenty one year old
accounting student basically said that Renee wantedto leave him. Apparently, Jeffrey spent
a little too much time with hisfriends working on cars instead of spending time
with his young wife. For whateverreason, However, it seems that the
letter was never given to Jeffrey.Did he see it somehow, though we
(09:18):
don't know. Police, of course, brought Jeffrey in for questioning, but
he maintained there were no problems betweenthe two newlyweds. Members of Renee's family
also discounted the significance of the letter, suggesting Renee may have written it while
she was upset but later decided notto give it to Jeffrey. She might
(09:39):
have even forgotten that she still hadit. As darkness descended upon the park,
Sergeant Burke ordered a beech buggy topatrol the shoreline throughout the night for
a grim reason. Enough days hadnow passed that if the young women drowned,
their bodies would float to the water'ssurface. The buggy patrolled all night,
(10:01):
but no bodies or other evidence wasfound. The next day, Wednesday,
July sixth, the search shifted toan area west of the state park.
As a result of several telephone tipsreceived by authorities. The search area
extended west to the small but wealthytown of Ogden Dunes. Several people claimed
(10:26):
they saw three young women that Saturdayget on a boat and headed west.
The boat was said to have hadonly one person at it aside from the
women, who was a man describedas being well tanned, in his early
twenties and with dark wavy hair.The witnesses recalled that one of the women
was wearing a yellow swimsuit and positivelyidentified photographs of the women as the people
(10:52):
they had seen aboard the watercraft.In addition to the Sheriff's posse, a
massive group of volunteers helped out withthe search, over a hundred people in
total. On a side note,you don't hear much about Sheriff's posses anymore.
It seems like the world might bea better place if we still had
(11:13):
them. Anyway. On that Julysixth, the search took a major turn
when some wreckage from a boat washedup along the Lake Michigan shore, about
three miles down drift from where thethree were last seen. Among the debris
found was foam and metal from boatseats, oil and gas cans and some
wood believed to be from a boat. The debris was not too far from
(11:37):
a water intake crib that extended abouta quarter mile out into the lake.
Police suspected that a boat smashed intothe large crib structure. Although the Coastguard
had not received any reports of amissing boat that weekend, that doesn't necessarily
mean it didn't happen. A CivilAir Patrol plane flew over the area and
searched for more debris, but alsocame up empty. The intensive search resumed
(12:01):
the next day and included Civil AirPatrol planes from two different locations, searching
as far north as Chicago. Coastguardboats were also back at it, searching
the Lake Michigan shore in Illinois,Indiana, and southern Michigan. These searchers
would continue uninterrupted for a solid week, and it was intense. The Coastguard
(12:24):
at Loane used ten boats, oneairplane, and a helicopter, while the
Civil Air Patrol deployed a minimum offour aircraft throughout the search. On top
of that, the US Army hadtwo helicopters searching from air, while dozens
of scuba divers searched the water.The State Park asked anyone with bloodhounds to
(12:45):
bring them to the park to helpin the search, and also asked owners
of nearby private cabins to check theirproperties for any sign of the missing beach
goers. The Sheriff's office searched overtwo hundred fifty cabins, and neither talked
to the occupants or looked inside throughthe windows of each of them. Superintendent
Svedek made a public appeal for anyonewho might have seen the three women to
(13:09):
contact him at park headquarters, andthe public responded. He received over a
hundred calls. Most of the reportswere dismissed fairly quickly, but some others
were looked into but ultimately were deadends. Authorities still didn't have a lot
to go on, but they werepretty certain that the women had gone into
the water, either for a swimor a boat ride. So far,
(13:33):
we have found nothing to indicate foulplay, said Sergeant Burke on the fourth
day of the search. But nothinghas been found to indicate what else might
have happened to them. Police learnedthat Patricia and Renee were strong swimmers,
while Anne was described as a fairswimmer. This seemed to make it unlikely
(13:54):
that all three of them drowned.Patricia, for one, was said to
have been capable of swimming twenty tothirty miles. The families of the three
women could think of no one theyknew who owned a boat, and stressed
that the women were not into boating. Actually, all three of them were
horse rack riding enthusiasts land lovers.Patricia actually owned her own horse, a
(14:18):
Thoroughbred named Hank, which at themoment was at a racetrack near Winnipeg,
Manitoba. In Canada. She workedas a secretary at Commonwealth Edison, the
local electric utility. It was whilegrowing up in Wisconsin, where Patricia spent
her summers at her parents lake cottage, that she had developed into an expert
(14:39):
swimmer, but horses were her reallove. Before acquiring Hank, she owned
a saddle horse which she boarded inthe same stable where Anne kept her horse.
That's how the two became friends.Anne had a job exercising horses at
the oak Brook Polo Club, whichis to this day one of the the
(15:00):
most elite polo clubs in the UnitedStates. Renee had been a high school
classmate of Patricia's. After graduation,she completed a one year course at a
medical technology school in Chicago. Asthe search continued, police received another large
batch of calls after the women's parentsmade a public plea for information. Various
(15:24):
callers who had seen their photographs inarea newspapers reported having seen them in Michigan,
Illinois, and Wisconsin. Some ofthe callers who had been at the
beach that day of the disappearance saidthey had seen the three get into a
boat with three men. Other callersremembered it as two men, and another
one said there was only one man. The state police checked out every lead,
(15:48):
and for a while it seemed likethe best lead was a lifeguard who
told investigators he had seen the womenget into a boat with three men Award
the next day, however, thelifeguard told police he did not think they
were the same girls. In theend, police considered the best lead to
be the original one from the teenageboy and girl, who told connors about
(16:11):
seeing the women get into a smallboat containing one man. The story was
backed up by other witnesses as well, so it had some merit to it.
Let's take a quick break. OnThursday, j Ly seventh, the
US Coastguards spoke with three men fromnearby Michigan City, Indiana, who said
(16:33):
they spoke for a while with threewomen at the beach while on their boat.
They asked the women to go ona boat ride with them, but
the women turned them down. I'mmarried, I can't go, one of
the women explained. Of note tothe coastguards men, though, was that
when this interaction took place, thethree women were standing in what was described
as chin deep water. Now thatis really deep water to be standing in.
(17:00):
This report renewed speculation that the threemay have drowned after all, rather
than having gotten in a boat accident. So once again out came the scuba
divers. They searched Thursday evening andthroughout the night and all day Friday,
but came up with nothing. Atthis point, I am ninety percent sure
they were victims of accidental drowning,Superintendent Sveedic stated, But Sergeant Burke was
(17:26):
not convinced. He recalled that thethree of them were all very good swimmers,
so this possibility, in his mindwas very remote. He also didn't
think they were in a boating accident. The two remaining possibilities, at least
the two most likely remaining possibilities,were that either the women somehow met with
(17:47):
foul play, or they all ranaway together. Running away seemed pretty unlikely,
though all three women did have sometype of problems in their personal lives,
as just about everybody does, butnone was considered significant enough to run
away from. Aside from that,they left behind their purses, shoes,
(18:07):
and lots of other personal items,so this led Sergeant Burke and others to
start seriously considering the possibility that someonedid something bad to these women, and
as investigators reached the one week periodthat the women had been missing, the
official searches were essentially called off.There seemed to be no chance that they
(18:29):
were anywhere in the park or thenearby vicinity. This was now a matter
of detective work, questioning everyone connectedto the women to see if they could
figure out what had happened. Patricia'sfather, Harold Blow, refused to give
up though. Harold was a lieutenantcolonel in the Illinois Civil Air Patrol,
and he continued his own search byairplane for the missing girls. With a
(18:52):
couple of his colleagues. They flewback and forth over the beach and nearby
areas, taking aerial photographs that Haroldwould examine endlessly looking for anything that might
explain what happened to his daughter andher friends. Harold was not convinced that
Patty had run away either. Heknew there was no way she wouldn't contact
him if she could. There wasalso the matter of her racehorse, Hank.
(19:18):
Hank had won nine hundred dollars ina race that weekend in Winnipeg,
Manitoba. Annie won another race twoweeks earlier, but nobody ever collected the
winnings for either Victory. Renee Brule'sfather, Joseph Snecco, was very confident
that the three were still alive.Joseph's theory was that, for one reason
or another, the women had voluntarilyleft the idea and were too frightened to
(19:42):
return after seeing all the fuss causedby their disappearance. Basically, they were
too embarrassed to show their faces again. It turns out that a local man
had been filming some scenes at thebeach that July fourth, and made his
films available to star Burke. Fromthose movies, the potential boats of interests
(20:03):
were narrowed down to two. Onetwenty six to twenty eight foot cabin cruiser
with three men on board. Anda smaller sailboat that was about sixteen to
eighteen feet in length with only oneman on board. So this goes along
with what witnesses had been saying,and from those witness statements in the film,
it was thought that the girls wereseen in the smaller boat, with
(20:26):
Patties sitting up front next to thedriver of the boat, and the other
two sitting in the back. Infact, investigators had no question that the
three women were aboard that small sailboatthat day, but Sergeant Burke also believed
that the three may have gotten intothe larger boat. Later that afternoon,
(20:47):
witnesses said the women were walking onthe beach getting something to eat, and
then headed off into the dunes.This presented the thought that they may have
come back to the beach in thesailboat and then way for the man who
had that larger cabin cruiser. Patty'sfather continued his air searches and made public
pleas for any information regarding the whereaboutsof his daughter. At the same time,
(21:12):
investigators learned that all three of themissing women had some secrets that their
families didn't know about. As wesaid, Renee was apparently having marital problems.
While it seems that Patricia and Anne, through their interest in racehorses,
had some criminal histories, or atleast dealing with people with criminal histories,
(21:34):
horse racing, especially back in thenineteen sixties, could certainly draw out some
seedy characters, so this was aconcern. In fact, about four months
before the disappearance, some of Patricia'sfriends noticed an injury to her face that
looked like the result of a paunchor an assault. When they asked her
about it, Patricia admitted that shehad some trouble with quote some syndicate people
(22:00):
that she knew. Patricia was alsoknown to have a boyfriend named John Paul
Jones, described as an ex convictand rodeo cowboy. F PIO agents interviewed
Jones twice in California, where helived at the time. Jones confirmed that
he previously had a relationship with Patricia, but vehemently denied any knowledge of her
(22:23):
whereabouts. Patricia, Anne, andRenee frequently rode horses at a stable in
Palatine, Illinois. The stables wherethey rode were owned by a local horse
dealer named George Jane. George andhis half brother, Silas Jane had recently
been involved in a bitter dispute overhorse stealing. When a young woman named
(22:47):
Cheryl Anne Rude was killed at thestable where the girls rode horses in June
nineteen sixty five by a car bomb, a bomb which was intended for George
Jane, the stable owner. Georgehad asked Sheryl to move his Cadillac form
when the bomb exploded, a real, wrong time, wrong place kind of
situation. Unfortunately, George was prettycertain that the bomb was not only intended
(23:11):
to kill him, but was placedthere by Silas. How does this fit
with the young women's disappearances. Well, the theory was that perhaps through their
frequent presence at the stable, theymay have either witnessed the bomb being planted,
or somehow had some other connection tothis incident. This theory could explain
Patricia's odd remarks about her facial injuryfrom March nineteen sixty six and her connection
(23:37):
to syndicate people. It has neverbeen proven, though George and Silas's phone
numbers were discovered in the belongings ofone of the missing women in nineteen sixty
six, so they definitely knew them. George Jane was killed by a gunshot
in nineteen seventy and his brother Silaswas later convicted of conspiracy in his half
(23:59):
brother's murder and was sent to prison, a prison where he died of leukemia
in nineteen eighty seven. Silas wasalso suspected in another murder, so these
were certainly dangerous people they were dealingwith at the stable. Silas was a
particularly bad guy, heavily involved inthe organized crime world of Chicago. He's
said to have been a bully,extortionist, thief, and perhaps murderer.
(24:25):
He actually bragged about serving time inprison for murder, although in actuality he
had not at the time of hisbragging. Even if George and Silas wanted
to murder the three young women,though, it's very unlikely that a the
killers knew they were going to thebeach on that July second b they followed
them to the beach, which againwas over an hour drive away, and
(24:48):
C they decided to kill three womenat a very crowded beach on a busy
July fourth weekend, perhaps on aboat that they somehow knew the girls would
get on. It just doesn't addup. The months began to pass by,
and while people kept looking for thewomen. No solid leads came up.
(25:11):
A few people reported potentially seeing oneor more of the women, but
those leads ultimately led nowhere. Laterthat year, on the outside chance that
the three women were still alive andliving elsewhere, their families printed five thousand
missing person flyers containing previously unpublished picturesof their daughters and sent them to friends
(25:33):
and relatives in other states throughout theUnited States. The flyers were also distributed
by police departments in Florida, Arizona, California, and other states that had
major horse tracks. Still, nothingcame up nothing Since then, the case
remains open to this day. SergeantBurke retired in nineteen seventy one after twenty
(26:00):
one years with the Indiana State Police. He spent the next four years working
for the US government as a policeadvisor in South Vietnam and was among the
last Americans evacuated from Saigon in nineteenseventy five. From there, he went
to Saudi Arabia to work as headof security for a hospital. So Burke
(26:21):
certainly lived an adventurous life, butsadly couldn't find the missing women. Harold
Blow, the father who refused togive up hope eventually retired and moved to
Florida, but kept in touch withSergeant Burke while he was in Saudi Arabia,
exchanging theories about the case. Butto this day, no one knows
what happened to Patricia, Anne andRenee. There are a number of theories
(26:47):
out there, some we already wentover, but some of them seem more
plausible than others. Some of thetheories are One, they were involved in
a horrible boating accident that left nophysical trace of anyone aboard. No boats
were reported missing that weekend, butit's still not out of the realm of
possibility. Two, they were victimsof an abduction that turned to murder aboard
(27:12):
the boat. Three, the threewomen died, possibly by murder, after
they voluntarily disappeared or ran away.Four, Anne's pregnancy might have led to
an abortion death, possibly at sea, and her two friends were killed to
(27:32):
keep them from reporting it. Andthe fifth theory. The fifth theory is
that the three women were swallowed upby a giant sinkle in the massive sand
dunes. While very unlikely, somethinglike this has happened before. In twenty
thirteen, a six year old boywas swallowed whole by a sand dune at
(27:53):
the nearby Indiana Dunes National Park.It took rescuers three and a half hours
to dig out the boy, whowas placed on a ventilator in a Chicago
hospital where he stayed for ten days. Fortunately, the boy made a full
recovery, but this is after peopleknew that he went into the sinkhole.
(28:15):
In any case, it's unlikely thatthe three adult women would simultaneously sink into
the sand dunes. It just doesn'tseem likely. So that brings us back
to the two most likely scenarios,one being that the three women drowned,
or the other being that the threewomen met with foul play. If it
were a drowning, it's likely thatat least one of the bodies, if
(28:37):
not all three, would have eventuallybeen found, but it is still a
possibility. In any case, allof the theories have holes in them.
Nothing seems to add up, buthopefully the case will yet be solved someday.
Patricia Blow and Renee Brule would beseventy six years old this year.
(28:57):
Anne Miller would be seventy eight.Anyone with information on the disappearances of Patricia
Blow, Renee Rule, and AnneMiller should contact the Indiana State Police.
If you know something anything, it'snot too late to report it. I'd
(29:17):
like to know what you think happenedto these three young ladies. Head over
to our Facebook page to discuss.I'm curious to see what you're thinking.
And that's all for this episode ofGreat Lakes True Crime. You can follow
the show on Facebook and Twitter justsearch for Great Lakes True Crime. You
can also check out links in theshow notes for sources and the show merchandise
(29:40):
page. Also, many thanks tothose who left positive reviews for the show.
That's one way to really help usout. And if you do like
the show, please tell a friendabout it. You can email me at
Great Lakes Truecrime at gmail dot comwith any thoughts or case suggestions you may
have for Great Lakes True Crime.This has been Steve, your host and
(30:03):
producer. Thanks for listening. Byes
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