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Speaker 1: The following episode involves details of child sexual abuse parental discretion.

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Speaker 1: As advised, you're listening to part two of Unexplained, Season five,

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Speaker 1: episode sixteen, Built on Shifting Sands. By nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: stables owner George Jane had built a significant reputation as

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Speaker 1: a breeder of horses, particularly within the glitzy and rarefied

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Speaker 1: world of show jumping. His phone number being found in

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Speaker 1: the purse that Patricia Blao left behind on the beach

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Speaker 1: at the Indiana June State Park marks a significant shift

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Speaker 1: in the narrative regarding her fate and that of her

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Speaker 1: two friends, Anne Miller and Renee Blao. To understand why

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Speaker 1: requires understanding a little more about George Jane and the

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Speaker 1: world he operated in, but more specifically, understanding his older

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Speaker 1: brother Silas. It isn't clear if the connections that were

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Speaker 1: later made between the missing women and the Jane's brothers

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Speaker 1: were fully understood at the time of the women's disappearance.

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Speaker 1: For many who've looked into the case more recently, however,

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Speaker 1: it is an essential one. Silas and George Jane grew

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Speaker 1: up in Lake Zurich, a village on the northern outskirts

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Speaker 1: of Chicago, although their circumstances were a little different. Sixteen

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Speaker 1: years older. Silas was born in nineteen o seven, the

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Speaker 1: first of four boys from a brood that would eventually

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Speaker 1: swell to twelve in size. The Jane family had a

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Speaker 1: small farm holding not far from the lake, and Silas's father, Arthur,

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Speaker 1: made what little money he could as a truck driver,

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Speaker 1: then later as a supplier of sugar to bootleggers during Prohibition.

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Speaker 1: There was always something a little different about Silas, even

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Speaker 1: from an early age. One morning, when he was six

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Speaker 1: years old, he appeared at the kitchen door with his

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Speaker 1: face and clothes covered in blood and feathers. When his

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Speaker 1: horrified mother asked the young boy what he'd done, he

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Speaker 1: explained excitedly that one of the geese had bit him

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Speaker 1: so naturally. In order to stop it happening again, he

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Speaker 1: found an axe and chopped every last one of them

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Speaker 1: to pieces. Silas's dad left the family in the early

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. A short time later, in nineteen twenty three,

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Speaker 1: George was born, the product of a new relationship between

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Speaker 1: their mother, Catherine, and a man named George Spunner, who

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Speaker 1: owned a local campsite. George was given the Jane's surname. However,

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Speaker 1: to avoid any unwanted gossip, a year after George was born,

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Speaker 1: a then seventeen year old Silas raped someone. There are

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Speaker 1: a few details about the crime other than that he

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Speaker 1: was sentenced to several years in prison, and while inside,

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Speaker 1: his brothers DeForest and Frank became increasingly interested in horses,

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Speaker 1: eventually opening up their own ranch in Woodstock, about twenty

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Speaker 1: miles west of Lake Zurich. When Silas was released several

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Speaker 1: years later, it was only natural that he would join

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Speaker 1: his brothers in their new venture. The Jane brothers specialized

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Speaker 1: in breaking wild horses that they had shipped in from

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Speaker 1: the West for use in the rail industry. Others would

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Speaker 1: be unceremoniously chopped up and sold as dog food. By

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, the brothers, or the Jesse Jane Gang,

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Speaker 1: as they had come to be known, had gained a

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Speaker 1: tough reputation among the local commune. The brothers did little

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Speaker 1: to dispel the nickname, preferring instead to wear it as

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Speaker 1: a badge of honor, most proudly on the days when

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Speaker 1: they would drive their latest herd through town. Silas in particular,

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Speaker 1: soon developed a liking for the way the townspeople would

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Speaker 1: try to avoid eye contact or coward and shop doorways

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Speaker 1: as they passed. Though George didn't share a father with

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Speaker 1: the brothers, DeForest, or D as he was nicknamed, was

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Speaker 1: quick to take him under his wing. D was a

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Speaker 1: well respected rodeo rider and riding instructor, and as George

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Speaker 1: grew old enough to help out at the ranch, the

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Speaker 1: pair became increasingly close. Though Silas was jealous of their relationship,

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Speaker 1: he had far too much respect for d to let

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Speaker 1: it show, as detailed in a two thousand and two

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Speaker 1: article in Chicago Magazine written by gine O'sheay. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty eight, DeForest's fiance, May Sweeney was found dead in

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Speaker 1: their home. An autopsy seemed to confirm that she committed

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Speaker 1: suicide by drinking arsenic. The day after May's funeral, d

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Speaker 1: put on his smartest rodeo costume, grabbed his twelve gage shotgun,

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Speaker 1: and left the house. Having marched up to the cemetery,

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Speaker 1: he stirred over May's freshly dug Grave, placed the shotgun

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Speaker 1: under his chin and pulled the trigger. It's thought the

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Speaker 1: animosity that would come to define Silas and George's relationship

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Speaker 1: stemmed from this singular moment in their lives. For George,

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Speaker 1: he'd lost the person that was most close to him

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Speaker 1: in the world, but he was also reported to have

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Speaker 1: gained twenty acres of land that had been left to

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Speaker 1: him in De's will. Silas, on the other hand, had

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Speaker 1: lost one of the few moderating influences in his life,

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Speaker 1: and the land left behind for George drove a thick

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Speaker 1: wedge between the brothers that would be extracted. In DeForest's absence.

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Speaker 1: The brothers continued their horse operation, with Silas now taking

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Speaker 1: more of a leading role. As a convicted felon, Silas

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Speaker 1: was spared having to fight in the Second World War,

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Speaker 1: allowing him to cement further his grip on the family business.

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Speaker 1: Silas was even able to expand the operation, selling horsemeat

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Speaker 1: as beef on the black market. This endeavor would bring

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Speaker 1: Silas into contact with the Chicago mob, but with his

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Speaker 1: gruff demeanor and the tattoo on his forearm of a

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Speaker 1: snake winding its way around a dagger, Silas wasn't cowered

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Speaker 1: by anyone. But it was through the show horse business

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Speaker 1: that the Jane's brothers really found their fortune. Silas may

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Speaker 1: have had a reputation as a tough guy, but he

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Speaker 1: was also an electrically charismatic figure. It was a ruthless combination,

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Speaker 1: and one that seemed to work best on well healed

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Speaker 1: men from the city and wealthier Chicago suburbs who came

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Speaker 1: to his stables in search of show horses to buy

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Speaker 1: their children, perhaps keen to prove their macho worth in

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Speaker 1: Silas's presence, the men would think nothing of shelling out

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Speaker 1: anything up to twenty thousand dollars on one of his

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Speaker 1: horses if he said it could turn their children into

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Speaker 1: championship show horse riders. Only with Silas there was always

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Speaker 1: a catch. Often, when Silas sold a horse on the

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Speaker 1: pretense it was a shure fire competition winner, the new

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Speaker 1: owners would soon receive a call from Silas's stable informing

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Speaker 1: them of the bad news that the horse had suddenly

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Speaker 1: taken ill or broken a leg and had to be killed.

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Speaker 1: Though disappointing, the owners would often be covered by insurance,

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Speaker 1: and in the meantime Silas could collect champion horse level

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Speaker 1: fees and do away with the animal before it somewhat

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Speaker 1: less than championship qualities were ever discovered, and there were

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Speaker 1: other reasons to be wary of him too, With Silas

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Speaker 1: owning a stables as well as a horse dealership, many

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Speaker 1: of the horses would be kept at the stables, with

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Speaker 1: their young female owners often dropping in to look after them.

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Speaker 1: It is widely speculated that Silas, a convicted rapist, took

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Speaker 1: advantage of them. At some time in the early nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: Silas ordered George to break another horse's leg, but George refused.

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Speaker 1: Having long grown tired of Silas's nefarious practices, he decided

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Speaker 1: in that moment to strike out on his own. Soon after,

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Speaker 1: he bought the Happy Day Stables in Norwood Park. Silas

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Speaker 1: in turn expanded his business, buying the Idle Hour Stables

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Speaker 1: in Park Ridge, with George now essentially set up as

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Speaker 1: a rival operation. On the afternoon of October sixteen, nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty five, three young boys fourteen year old Robert Peterson,

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Speaker 1: thirteen year old John Schoeisler, and his eleven year old

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Speaker 1: brother Anton Junior, set off from their home in Jefferson

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Speaker 1: Park and headed to Chicago to watch The African Lion,

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Speaker 1: a Disney documentary that had just been released at the cinema.

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Speaker 1: But the boys never returned home. Two days later, or

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Speaker 1: three of their naked bodies were found in a ditch

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Speaker 1: in the Robinson Woods, which just so happened to be

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Speaker 1: a couple of miles down the road from Silas's idle

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Speaker 1: Hands stables. Several local residents claimed to have heard screams

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Speaker 1: coming from the direction of the stables the night the

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Speaker 1: boys disappeared. Police made a cursory search at the property

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Speaker 1: and spoke to a few stable hands working at the

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Speaker 1: time they visited, but all denied knowing anything about what

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Speaker 1: had happened. In nineteen sixty one, George's daughter took the

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Speaker 1: top prize at a local show horse competition, riding a

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Speaker 1: horse that George had reared and trained. The win established

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Speaker 1: George as the leading Jane brother in the business and

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Speaker 1: drew immediate scorn from Silas. After years of festering resentment,

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Speaker 1: George was now stealing its business too. In response, Silas

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Speaker 1: began a relentless campaign of hate against his half brother,

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Speaker 1: involving everything from damaging property to thinly veiled death threats.

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Speaker 1: Things only got worse for George the more successful his

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Speaker 1: business became. But there was another reason, according to George's wife, Marian,

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Speaker 1: that Silas had become murderously fixated on George, something to

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Speaker 1: do with incriminating information that George had on Silas regarding

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Speaker 1: what he knew about those three dead boys. George wouldn't

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Speaker 1: go public with the information, according to Marian, for fear

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Speaker 1: of reprisal from Silas, especially since he was suspected of

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Speaker 1: having informers that worked inside the police. Instead, he is

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Speaker 1: said to have told his wife that he wrote it

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Speaker 1: all down in a letter that was only to be

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Speaker 1: opened if Silas, ever succeeded in having him killed. It

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Speaker 1: was around this time that pat Blow, Anne Miller, and

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Speaker 1: Renee Brule began frequenting George Jane's tri Color farm in Palatine,

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Speaker 1: a village on the northwest outskirts of Chicago. Being keen riders,

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Speaker 1: they would likely have known Sheryl Lyne Rude two. By

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, the then twenty two year old Rude

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Speaker 1: was one of George's top riders. She had also once

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Speaker 1: ridden for Silas, but had left his stable after he

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Speaker 1: propositioned her for sex. On June fourteenth, not long after

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Speaker 1: Rude had won a competition in Cincinnati, she was once

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Speaker 1: again visiting the Tricolor stables, when George tossed her his

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Speaker 1: car keys and asked her to move a trailer for him.

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Speaker 1: Catching them, Rude jogged over to his Cadillac, pulled open

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Speaker 1: the door, and got behind the wheel, placing the keys

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Speaker 1: into the ignition. She turned them. A huge explosion ripped

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Speaker 1: through the vehicle, blowing out the windows and raising the

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Speaker 1: car off the ground in a ball of fire and smoke.

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Speaker 1: Cheryl Lynn Rude was killed instantly. Five days later, a

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Speaker 1: man named Stephen Grod confessed to George that the bomb

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Speaker 1: had been meant for him, and that when it didn't work,

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Speaker 1: Silas paid him to shoot George. George informed the police,

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Speaker 1: and Silas was arrested for attempted murder. However, in March

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, when Grod came to take the stand,

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Speaker 1: he was suddenly overcome with a strange bout of memory loss,

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Speaker 1: remembering nothing of what he'd previously confessed to George. The

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Speaker 1: case promptly collapsed. A few months later, the three young

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Speaker 1: women went to Indiana June State Park and never came home.

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Speaker 1: Did they, as some have speculated, see something at the

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Speaker 1: Tricolor Stables that they were not meant to have seen.

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Speaker 1: Most nights, I share a bet with a Pro Bowl quarterback,

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Speaker 1: an Olympic swimmer, and a national soccer star. I should explain.

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Speaker 1: That's O N molecule dot com. By September nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: it had been two months since Pat, Anne, and Renee disappeared,

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Speaker 1: and police had found no sign of them or either

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Speaker 1: of the boats that they were said to have board

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Speaker 1: it on the day they went missing. With everything that

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Speaker 1: had been found going on in the girls private lives,

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Speaker 1: Sergeant Edward Burke of the Indiana State Police was certain

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Speaker 1: of only two things that the women had not accidentally

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Speaker 1: drowned at the beach, nor had they been involved in

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00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:22,400
Speaker 1: any boating accident. Since no boats or any other people

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00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:26,040
Speaker 1: near the water that day were declared missing, it seemed

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00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:29,120
Speaker 1: only reasonable to assume that the men who they joined

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00:15:29,120 --> 00:15:33,640
Speaker 1: on the boats knew something about their whereabouts. Though the

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00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:37,880
Speaker 1: search of the beach had finished up months before, thousands

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00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:41,840
Speaker 1: of leaflets with pictures and details of the women continued

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00:15:41,880 --> 00:15:46,240
Speaker 1: to be printed up and distributed throughout the area. Harold

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00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:50,680
Speaker 1: blow Pat's father remained convinced the women had been abducted

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00:15:51,040 --> 00:15:55,360
Speaker 1: and most likely murdered, believing it was simply inconceivable that

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00:15:55,560 --> 00:15:57,920
Speaker 1: one of them hadn't found a way to let their

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00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:02,560
Speaker 1: parents know they were okay. Keeping up his own investigation,

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00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:06,000
Speaker 1: He continued to fly back and forth over the Indiana

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00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:09,640
Speaker 1: June's area and shores of Lake Michigan in the forlorn

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00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:13,440
Speaker 1: one in a million hope that he might spot something

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00:16:13,720 --> 00:16:24,360
Speaker 1: to help find them. By nineteen sixty seven, George Jane

230
00:16:24,680 --> 00:16:27,520
Speaker 1: was growing tired of running from his brother and having

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00:16:27,560 --> 00:16:30,800
Speaker 1: to watch over his and his family's shoulders wherever they went.

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00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:34,680
Speaker 1: When his two daughters got married that year, he paid

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00:16:34,760 --> 00:16:38,320
Speaker 1: Silas not to cause any trouble for them. The payoff,

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00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:41,200
Speaker 1: along with the promise that he would quit competing in

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00:16:41,240 --> 00:16:44,480
Speaker 1: horse shows, appeared to do the trick, and an uneasy

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00:16:44,560 --> 00:16:50,320
Speaker 1: truce was established. George's paranoia, however, remained enough so that

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00:16:50,560 --> 00:16:54,320
Speaker 1: he had a transmitter secretly placed on Silas's car to

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00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:59,280
Speaker 1: alert him whenever his brother got too close. In nineteen

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00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:05,320
Speaker 1: sixty nine, the transmitter stopped working. Realizing the battery had

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00:17:05,320 --> 00:17:09,119
Speaker 1: likely cut out, George sent someone to try and covertly

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00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:13,240
Speaker 1: replace it for him, Having snuck on to Silas's farm.

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00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:17,560
Speaker 1: The man, Frank Michelle Junior, was just in the process

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00:17:17,600 --> 00:17:20,280
Speaker 1: of swapping out the battery when he was spotted by

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00:17:20,320 --> 00:17:24,000
Speaker 1: one of Silas's guard dogs. Almost as soon as they

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00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:27,480
Speaker 1: began to bark. Silas was at the door with his gun,

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00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:32,760
Speaker 1: Spotting Frank fiddling with his car, he opened fire and

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00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:38,440
Speaker 1: killed him. Enraged once again by his brother's actions, Silas

248
00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:43,159
Speaker 1: approached Edwin Neffield, a police officer from Markham who'd worked

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00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:46,359
Speaker 1: for him in the past, a man on the inside,

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00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:50,320
Speaker 1: just as George had suspected, and asked him to arrange

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00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:53,560
Speaker 1: a hit on George, but to do it right this time.

252
00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:59,160
Speaker 1: Neffeld recruited a man named Melvin Adams, who in turn

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00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:03,560
Speaker 1: recruited another man, Julius Barnes, to carry out the job.

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00:18:04,760 --> 00:18:09,119
Speaker 1: On October twenty eighth, nineteen seventy, a car parked up

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00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:13,640
Speaker 1: across the street from George's home in Palatine, Illinois. While

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00:18:13,680 --> 00:18:16,679
Speaker 1: Adams got out and popped the hood to make it

257
00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:19,960
Speaker 1: look as though something was wrong with the vehicle, Julius

258
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:23,440
Speaker 1: crept over to the Jane's household, where he heard laughter

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00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:27,800
Speaker 1: bubbling up from out of the basement window. Peeking through it,

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00:18:28,119 --> 00:18:31,080
Speaker 1: he saw the forty seven year old George sitting at

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00:18:31,080 --> 00:18:34,399
Speaker 1: a table playing cards with his wife Marian, and his

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00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:38,520
Speaker 1: daughter and son in law. Julius aimed a gun at

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00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:42,919
Speaker 1: George's heart and pulled the trigger the family screamed at

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00:18:42,960 --> 00:18:45,840
Speaker 1: the sound of the gun blast and watched in horror

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00:18:46,080 --> 00:18:49,240
Speaker 1: as George stumbled to his feet, clutching at his shirt,

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00:18:49,680 --> 00:18:53,720
Speaker 1: where a flower of red was steadily blossoming. Then he

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00:18:53,800 --> 00:19:03,879
Speaker 1: fell to the floor and died. A short time after

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00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:07,679
Speaker 1: George's murder, Marian discovered the stash of letters he'd been

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00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:11,119
Speaker 1: keeping in the event of his death, though she found

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00:19:11,119 --> 00:19:14,720
Speaker 1: nothing linking Silas to the murders of Robert Peterson and

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Speaker 1: John and Anton Shusler, the three young boys found dead

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00:19:18,320 --> 00:19:22,240
Speaker 1: close to Silas's stables in nineteen fifty five. George had

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00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:25,560
Speaker 1: made a record at the numerous times that Silas tried

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00:19:25,560 --> 00:19:30,000
Speaker 1: to have him killed. Marion later insisted that George knew

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00:19:30,040 --> 00:19:32,440
Speaker 1: more about the murder of the young boys, but have

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00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:36,040
Speaker 1: perhaps decided against exposing his brother because of the shame

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00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:39,800
Speaker 1: it would bring to his family, partly on account of

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00:19:39,840 --> 00:19:42,680
Speaker 1: the letters, and due to the statement of Melvin Adams,

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00:19:42,880 --> 00:19:47,320
Speaker 1: who was granted immunity and returned for his testimony. Julius Barnes,

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00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:51,880
Speaker 1: Edwin Neffelt, and Silas himself, along with one other acquaintance,

281
00:19:52,280 --> 00:19:56,800
Speaker 1: were all convicted for their part in George's murder. Then

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00:19:57,160 --> 00:20:00,359
Speaker 1: at some point down the line, a curious coincid students

283
00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:04,160
Speaker 1: involving Neffield, who'd organized the hit on behalf of Silas,

284
00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:08,160
Speaker 1: is said to have come to light. According to one source,

285
00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:12,600
Speaker 1: after Pat Blow, Anne Miller, and Renee Brule went missing,

286
00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:17,280
Speaker 1: Neffeld apparently lodged an insurance claim for a boat matching

287
00:20:17,280 --> 00:20:20,040
Speaker 1: the description of the one the women were seen boarding

288
00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:24,320
Speaker 1: around noon on the day they disappeared, the inference being

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00:20:24,359 --> 00:20:27,280
Speaker 1: that Silas had arranged to have them taken care of,

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00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:31,520
Speaker 1: having possibly witnessed the failed attempt on George's life at

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00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:36,399
Speaker 1: the Tri Color Stables, with Edward Nefhfeldt perhaps once again

292
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:40,560
Speaker 1: doing the dirty work. Nehfeld is alleged to have told

293
00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:44,119
Speaker 1: his insurance company that the boat was destroyed in a fire,

294
00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:50,159
Speaker 1: However this is not being confirmed. By nineteen seventy, with

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00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:53,320
Speaker 1: the women having been missing for four years, the case

296
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:58,320
Speaker 1: was effectively dormant. Pat's father, Harold, however, had refused to

297
00:20:58,320 --> 00:21:01,200
Speaker 1: give up hope, and though the grief at his daughter's

298
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:05,000
Speaker 1: loss could be crippling, he continued doing whatever he could

299
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:09,639
Speaker 1: to find her. Whenever the weight of it threatened to

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00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:13,000
Speaker 1: completely consume him, he would jump into his car and

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00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:16,840
Speaker 1: drive out to Chesterton, Indiana, to speak with Sergeant Burke.

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00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:21,320
Speaker 1: Although Burke had long since moved off the case, he

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00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:23,400
Speaker 1: made an effort to keep on top of any new

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00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:28,159
Speaker 1: information that came in, no matter how small. By then,

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00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:31,080
Speaker 1: he'd come to the conclusion that the women had staged

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00:21:31,119 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 1: their disappearance in order to escape the various problems in

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00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 1: their lives. Blow would often leave their meetings with a

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00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 1: renewed sense of hope and optimism at the prospect of

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00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 1: maybe one day seeing his daughter again, but the fog

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00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:49,520
Speaker 1: of grief was never far away. Returning the moment, he

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00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:52,879
Speaker 1: remembered just how unlikely it was the pat would not

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00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:55,200
Speaker 1: have got some kind of message to them by the

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00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:00,399
Speaker 1: Sergeant Burke retired the following year and took up a

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00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:04,880
Speaker 1: security post in Saudi Arabia. Harold Blow and his wife

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00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: moved to Florida, from where Harold continued to trade letters

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00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:12,800
Speaker 1: with Burke, discussing their various theories until the day he died.

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00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:22,800
Speaker 1: In the early nineteen seventies, the case of the missing

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00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:26,280
Speaker 1: women was taken over by Sergeant Michael Carmen of the

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00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:31,280
Speaker 1: Indiana State Police. While familiarizing himself with the case, he

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00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:35,640
Speaker 1: and State trooper Lou Weber came across an intriguing letter

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00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:39,960
Speaker 1: written from a self described psychic in Montana, claiming to

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00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:45,480
Speaker 1: know where the women's bodies were located. It read, I

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00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:49,120
Speaker 1: visualize a cabin on Lake Michigan, not too far from

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00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 1: where the girl's beach blanket was found. There is dark

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00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 1: colored sand. There are rickety wooden stairs leading up from

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00:22:57,240 --> 00:23:00,200
Speaker 1: the beach to a cabin on a bluff with a

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00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:05,160
Speaker 1: broken lawnchair outside. Carmen discovered that the letter had never

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00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: been acted on, and with no new substantial leads cropping

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00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 1: up since Burke's retirement, he figured it was at least

330
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:14,600
Speaker 1: worth the hour or so it would take to have

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00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:18,920
Speaker 1: a look. Handing the letter to Webber, the state trooper

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00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 1: made his way to the Indiana June State Park. After

333
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: parking his cruiser as close as he could to the shore,

334
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:30,399
Speaker 1: he continued the rest of the way on foot. After

335
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: walking almost two miles east from the spot on the

336
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 1: beach where the women had been sitting on that fateful day,

337
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 1: he came across an area of dark sand. Looking up,

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00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 1: he also spotted a crooked line of rickety wooden stairs

339
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,399
Speaker 1: leading up from the beach and at the end of

340
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:53,439
Speaker 1: that an old, dilapidated cabin. When he spotted the broken

341
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,879
Speaker 1: lawn chair with the fabric torn out and flapping in

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00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:01,119
Speaker 1: the wind, he turned immediately and ran to the car.

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00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 1: Webber returned to the beach an hour later, joined this

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00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:10,600
Speaker 1: time by Sergeant Carmen and two other officers. Over the

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00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 1: next three days, the four of them dug and dug,

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00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: turning over every grain of sand they could find in

347
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: the cabin's vicinity, until eventually empty handed, they were forced

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00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: to admit defeat. The bodies of the women, if they

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00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 1: had ever been there at all, were not there then.

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00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 1: Silas Jane was released from prison in nineteen seventy nine

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00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 1: after spending less than ten years in jail for arranging

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00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:49,680
Speaker 1: the murder of his half brother George. Despite regularly reporting

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00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: a yearly income of only five thousand dollars, Silas somehow

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00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: found the money to buy homes for each of his sisters,

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00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 1: as well as a string of new Cadillacs. When he

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00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 1: eventually died in nineteen eighty seven, succumbing to leukemia, he

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00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 1: was reported to be worth well over a million dollars,

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00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 1: close to two and a half in to day's money.

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00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,919
Speaker 1: In the mid nineteen nineties, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol,

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00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,919
Speaker 1: Tobacco and fire Arms looking into the disappearance of Helen Brack,

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00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 1: a well known socialite also with ties to the horse industry,

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00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 1: who went missing in nineteen seventy seven, stumbled upon something unexpected.

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00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: While interviewing informants regarding the bracch case, one let slip

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00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: that a man named Kenneth Hansen confessed to them that

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00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 1: he'd murdered those three young boys in nineteen fifty five,

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00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:48,880
Speaker 1: found near Silas's stable. Hansen, who would have been twenty

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00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 1: two at the time, was an employee of Silas's who

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00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: worked at those same stables. At a subsequent trial, it

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00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 1: was speculated that Hansen picked up the boys on their

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00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,360
Speaker 1: way home from the cinema in Chicago and drove them

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00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: to Silas's ranch under the pretense of showing them the horses.

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00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:10,360
Speaker 1: Hansen was in the process of raping John and Anton

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00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 1: Shusler when Robert Peterson caught him in the act. In

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00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: a panic, Hansome murdered all three of them. When Silas

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00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: is reported to have found out what happened, no doubt,

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00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:27,399
Speaker 1: fearful that Hansen would expose his criminal activities and of

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00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: what Hanson's crime would mean for the reputation of his stables,

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00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:35,239
Speaker 1: he helped Hanson dispose of the bodies and covered the

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00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: whole thing up. This was the secret that George's wife,

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00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 1: Marion believed George took to the grave and ultimately cost

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Speaker 1: him his life. There were rumors that Silas once confessed

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00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: to a cell mate while in prison for George's murder

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00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: that he knew where pat Blow, Anne Miller, and Renee

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00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 1: Brule were buried. It is also said that sometime before

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00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:05,439
Speaker 1: he died, Silas told a sheriff that three bodies were

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00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: buried under his home. Supposedly, plans were made to search

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00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 1: Silas's property until the sheriff involved was killed suddenly in

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00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,879
Speaker 1: a farming accident. Neither of these claims have been verified.

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Speaker 1: the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never

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404
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