WEBVTT - S05 Episode 16: Built On Shifting Sands (Pt.2 of 2) 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:04.560 The following episode involves details of child sexual abuse parental discretion. 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:20.120 As advised, you're listening to part two of Unexplained, Season five, 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:32.600 episode sixteen, Built on Shifting Sands. By nineteen sixty six, 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:37.479 stables owner George Jane had built a significant reputation as 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.480 a breeder of horses, particularly within the glitzy and rarefied 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.559 world of show jumping. His phone number being found in 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.040 the purse that Patricia Blao left behind on the beach 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.800 at the Indiana June State Park marks a significant shift 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.720 in the narrative regarding her fate and that of her 0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:01.080 two friends, Anne Miller and Renee Blao. To understand why 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:05.399 requires understanding a little more about George Jane and the 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:10.559 world he operated in, but more specifically, understanding his older 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:15.240 brother Silas. It isn't clear if the connections that were 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.600 later made between the missing women and the Jane's brothers 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.920 were fully understood at the time of the women's disappearance. 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.080 For many who've looked into the case more recently, however, 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:32.559 it is an essential one. Silas and George Jane grew 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.840 up in Lake Zurich, a village on the northern outskirts 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:42.000 of Chicago, although their circumstances were a little different. Sixteen 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.760 years older. Silas was born in nineteen o seven, the 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.080 first of four boys from a brood that would eventually 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:53.120 swell to twelve in size. The Jane family had a 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.639 small farm holding not far from the lake, and Silas's father, Arthur, 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.320 made what little money he could as a truck driver, 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:05.080 then later as a supplier of sugar to bootleggers during Prohibition. 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.440 There was always something a little different about Silas, even 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:14.000 from an early age. One morning, when he was six 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.040 years old, he appeared at the kitchen door with his 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:21.520 face and clothes covered in blood and feathers. When his 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.920 horrified mother asked the young boy what he'd done, he 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.320 explained excitedly that one of the geese had bit him 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.920 so naturally. In order to stop it happening again, he 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.880 found an axe and chopped every last one of them 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:40.320 to pieces. Silas's dad left the family in the early 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.480 nineteen twenties. A short time later, in nineteen twenty three, 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.560 George was born, the product of a new relationship between 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.040 their mother, Catherine, and a man named George Spunner, who 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.800 owned a local campsite. George was given the Jane's surname. However, 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:01.560 to avoid any unwanted gossip, a year after George was born, 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:06.080 a then seventeen year old Silas raped someone. There are 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.720 a few details about the crime other than that he 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.680 was sentenced to several years in prison, and while inside, 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:17.560 his brothers DeForest and Frank became increasingly interested in horses, 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.920 eventually opening up their own ranch in Woodstock, about twenty 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:26.360 miles west of Lake Zurich. When Silas was released several 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.480 years later, it was only natural that he would join 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:39.520 his brothers in their new venture. The Jane brothers specialized 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.680 in breaking wild horses that they had shipped in from 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.120 the West for use in the rail industry. Others would 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:50.960 be unceremoniously chopped up and sold as dog food. By 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.120 the nineteen thirties, the brothers, or the Jesse Jane Gang, 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.600 as they had come to be known, had gained a 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:02.480 tough reputation among the local commune. The brothers did little 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.880 to dispel the nickname, preferring instead to wear it as 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.000 a badge of honor, most proudly on the days when 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.880 they would drive their latest herd through town. Silas in particular, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.159 soon developed a liking for the way the townspeople would 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.600 try to avoid eye contact or coward and shop doorways 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.560 as they passed. Though George didn't share a father with 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.880 the brothers, DeForest, or D as he was nicknamed, was 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.599 quick to take him under his wing. D was a 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.800 well respected rodeo rider and riding instructor, and as George 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.240 grew old enough to help out at the ranch, the 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:44.720 pair became increasingly close. Though Silas was jealous of their relationship, 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.440 he had far too much respect for d to let 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.560 it show, as detailed in a two thousand and two 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:56.240 article in Chicago Magazine written by gine O'sheay. In nineteen 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:00.880 thirty eight, DeForest's fiance, May Sweeney was found dead in 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:05.359 their home. An autopsy seemed to confirm that she committed 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:10.599 suicide by drinking arsenic. The day after May's funeral, d 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:15.320 put on his smartest rodeo costume, grabbed his twelve gage shotgun, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.839 and left the house. Having marched up to the cemetery, 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.040 he stirred over May's freshly dug Grave, placed the shotgun 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:29.320 under his chin and pulled the trigger. It's thought the 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.240 animosity that would come to define Silas and George's relationship 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.839 stemmed from this singular moment in their lives. For George, 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.680 he'd lost the person that was most close to him 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.479 in the world, but he was also reported to have 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.320 gained twenty acres of land that had been left to 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.680 him in De's will. Silas, on the other hand, had 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.799 lost one of the few moderating influences in his life, 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.599 and the land left behind for George drove a thick 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:04.680 wedge between the brothers that would be extracted. In DeForest's absence. 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:09.320 The brothers continued their horse operation, with Silas now taking 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:13.360 more of a leading role. As a convicted felon, Silas 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:15.840 was spared having to fight in the Second World War, 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.840 allowing him to cement further his grip on the family business. 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.600 Silas was even able to expand the operation, selling horsemeat 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.320 as beef on the black market. This endeavor would bring 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.000 Silas into contact with the Chicago mob, but with his 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.000 gruff demeanor and the tattoo on his forearm of a 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:39.240 snake winding its way around a dagger, Silas wasn't cowered 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.799 by anyone. But it was through the show horse business 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:54.000 that the Jane's brothers really found their fortune. Silas may 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.840 have had a reputation as a tough guy, but he 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:01.720 was also an electrically charismatic figure. It was a ruthless combination, 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.760 and one that seemed to work best on well healed 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.680 men from the city and wealthier Chicago suburbs who came 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.200 to his stables in search of show horses to buy 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.160 their children, perhaps keen to prove their macho worth in 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.800 Silas's presence, the men would think nothing of shelling out 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.520 anything up to twenty thousand dollars on one of his 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.360 horses if he said it could turn their children into 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:29.040 championship show horse riders. Only with Silas there was always 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:33.160 a catch. Often, when Silas sold a horse on the 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.600 pretense it was a shure fire competition winner, the new 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.520 owners would soon receive a call from Silas's stable informing 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.440 them of the bad news that the horse had suddenly 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.000 taken ill or broken a leg and had to be killed. 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.480 Though disappointing, the owners would often be covered by insurance, 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.480 and in the meantime Silas could collect champion horse level 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.000 fees and do away with the animal before it somewhat 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.360 less than championship qualities were ever discovered, and there were 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.280 other reasons to be wary of him too, With Silas 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.800 owning a stables as well as a horse dealership, many 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.280 of the horses would be kept at the stables, with 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.960 their young female owners often dropping in to look after them. 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.960 It is widely speculated that Silas, a convicted rapist, took 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:27.560 advantage of them. At some time in the early nineteen fifties, 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:32.959 Silas ordered George to break another horse's leg, but George refused. 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:38.720 Having long grown tired of Silas's nefarious practices, he decided 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.440 in that moment to strike out on his own. Soon after, 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:47.320 he bought the Happy Day Stables in Norwood Park. Silas 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:51.480 in turn expanded his business, buying the Idle Hour Stables 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:55.360 in Park Ridge, with George now essentially set up as 0:08:55.400 --> 0:09:01.040 a rival operation. On the afternoon of October sixteen, nineteen 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:05.600 fifty five, three young boys fourteen year old Robert Peterson, 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.200 thirteen year old John Schoeisler, and his eleven year old 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.240 brother Anton Junior, set off from their home in Jefferson 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.839 Park and headed to Chicago to watch The African Lion, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.520 a Disney documentary that had just been released at the cinema. 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:27.280 But the boys never returned home. Two days later, or 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.000 three of their naked bodies were found in a ditch 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:34.120 in the Robinson Woods, which just so happened to be 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.720 a couple of miles down the road from Silas's idle 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:43.880 Hands stables. Several local residents claimed to have heard screams 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.280 coming from the direction of the stables the night the 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.960 boys disappeared. Police made a cursory search at the property 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.679 and spoke to a few stable hands working at the 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:58.160 time they visited, but all denied knowing anything about what 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:09.440 had happened. In nineteen sixty one, George's daughter took the 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:12.960 top prize at a local show horse competition, riding a 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:17.040 horse that George had reared and trained. The win established 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.160 George as the leading Jane brother in the business and 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:25.400 drew immediate scorn from Silas. After years of festering resentment, 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:31.440 George was now stealing its business too. In response, Silas 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.880 began a relentless campaign of hate against his half brother, 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:39.679 involving everything from damaging property to thinly veiled death threats. 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.040 Things only got worse for George the more successful his 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:49.920 business became. But there was another reason, according to George's wife, Marian, 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:54.960 that Silas had become murderously fixated on George, something to 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:59.160 do with incriminating information that George had on Silas regarding 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:03.840 what he knew about those three dead boys. George wouldn't 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:07.320 go public with the information, according to Marian, for fear 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.120 of reprisal from Silas, especially since he was suspected of 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.760 having informers that worked inside the police. Instead, he is 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:17.840 said to have told his wife that he wrote it 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.400 all down in a letter that was only to be 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:25.559 opened if Silas, ever succeeded in having him killed. It 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.440 was around this time that pat Blow, Anne Miller, and 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:34.840 Renee Brule began frequenting George Jane's tri Color farm in Palatine, 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:40.200 a village on the northwest outskirts of Chicago. Being keen riders, 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.600 they would likely have known Sheryl Lyne Rude two. By 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:48.480 nineteen sixty five, the then twenty two year old Rude 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:52.120 was one of George's top riders. She had also once 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.240 ridden for Silas, but had left his stable after he 0:11:55.320 --> 0:12:00.520 propositioned her for sex. On June fourteenth, not long after 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.040 Rude had won a competition in Cincinnati, she was once 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:08.160 again visiting the Tricolor stables, when George tossed her his 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:10.920 car keys and asked her to move a trailer for him. 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:16.240 Catching them, Rude jogged over to his Cadillac, pulled open 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.040 the door, and got behind the wheel, placing the keys 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:25.640 into the ignition. She turned them. A huge explosion ripped 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.880 through the vehicle, blowing out the windows and raising the 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.000 car off the ground in a ball of fire and smoke. 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:38.520 Cheryl Lynn Rude was killed instantly. Five days later, a 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.480 man named Stephen Grod confessed to George that the bomb 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.280 had been meant for him, and that when it didn't work, 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:51.040 Silas paid him to shoot George. George informed the police, 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:55.959 and Silas was arrested for attempted murder. However, in March 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.680 nineteen sixty six, when Grod came to take the stand, 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.839 he was suddenly overcome with a strange bout of memory loss, 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:08.440 remembering nothing of what he'd previously confessed to George. The 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:13.840 case promptly collapsed. 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By September nineteen sixty six, 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.200 it had been two months since Pat, Anne, and Renee disappeared, 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.560 and police had found no sign of them or either 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.680 of the boats that they were said to have board 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.120 it on the day they went missing. With everything that 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.160 had been found going on in the girls private lives, 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.800 Sergeant Edward Burke of the Indiana State Police was certain 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.520 of only two things that the women had not accidentally 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.560 drowned at the beach, nor had they been involved in 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:22.400 any boating accident. Since no boats or any other people 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:26.040 near the water that day were declared missing, it seemed 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.120 only reasonable to assume that the men who they joined 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:33.640 on the boats knew something about their whereabouts. Though the 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.880 search of the beach had finished up months before, thousands 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.840 of leaflets with pictures and details of the women continued 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:46.240 to be printed up and distributed throughout the area. Harold 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:50.680 blow Pat's father remained convinced the women had been abducted 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:55.360 and most likely murdered, believing it was simply inconceivable that 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:57.920 one of them hadn't found a way to let their 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:02.560 parents know they were okay. Keeping up his own investigation, 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.000 He continued to fly back and forth over the Indiana 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.640 June's area and shores of Lake Michigan in the forlorn 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.440 one in a million hope that he might spot something 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:24.360 to help find them. By nineteen sixty seven, George Jane 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.520 was growing tired of running from his brother and having 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.800 to watch over his and his family's shoulders wherever they went. 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.680 When his two daughters got married that year, he paid 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.320 Silas not to cause any trouble for them. The payoff, 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.200 along with the promise that he would quit competing in 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.480 horse shows, appeared to do the trick, and an uneasy 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:50.320 truce was established. George's paranoia, however, remained enough so that 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.320 he had a transmitter secretly placed on Silas's car to 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:59.280 alert him whenever his brother got too close. In nineteen 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:05.320 sixty nine, the transmitter stopped working. Realizing the battery had 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.119 likely cut out, George sent someone to try and covertly 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:13.240 replace it for him, Having snuck on to Silas's farm. 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:17.560 The man, Frank Michelle Junior, was just in the process 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.280 of swapping out the battery when he was spotted by 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.000 one of Silas's guard dogs. Almost as soon as they 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.480 began to bark. Silas was at the door with his gun, 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.760 Spotting Frank fiddling with his car, he opened fire and 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:38.440 killed him. Enraged once again by his brother's actions, Silas 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:43.159 approached Edwin Neffield, a police officer from Markham who'd worked 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.359 for him in the past, a man on the inside, 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.320 just as George had suspected, and asked him to arrange 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.560 a hit on George, but to do it right this time. 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:59.160 Neffeld recruited a man named Melvin Adams, who in turn 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.560 recruited another man, Julius Barnes, to carry out the job. 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:09.119 On October twenty eighth, nineteen seventy, a car parked up 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:13.640 across the street from George's home in Palatine, Illinois. While 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.679 Adams got out and popped the hood to make it 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.960 look as though something was wrong with the vehicle, Julius 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.440 crept over to the Jane's household, where he heard laughter 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.800 bubbling up from out of the basement window. Peeking through it, 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.080 he saw the forty seven year old George sitting at 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.399 a table playing cards with his wife Marian, and his 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.520 daughter and son in law. Julius aimed a gun at 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:42.919 George's heart and pulled the trigger the family screamed at 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.840 the sound of the gun blast and watched in horror 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.240 as George stumbled to his feet, clutching at his shirt, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.720 where a flower of red was steadily blossoming. Then he 0:18:53.800 --> 0:19:03.879 fell to the floor and died. A short time after 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.679 George's murder, Marian discovered the stash of letters he'd been 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:11.119 keeping in the event of his death, though she found 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.720 nothing linking Silas to the murders of Robert Peterson and 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.240 John and Anton Shusler, the three young boys found dead 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:22.240 close to Silas's stables in nineteen fifty five. George had 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.560 made a record at the numerous times that Silas tried 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:30.000 to have him killed. Marion later insisted that George knew 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.440 more about the murder of the young boys, but have 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:36.040 perhaps decided against exposing his brother because of the shame 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.800 it would bring to his family, partly on account of 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.680 the letters, and due to the statement of Melvin Adams, 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.320 who was granted immunity and returned for his testimony. Julius Barnes, 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.880 Edwin Neffelt, and Silas himself, along with one other acquaintance, 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:56.800 were all convicted for their part in George's murder. Then 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.359 at some point down the line, a curious coincid students 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:04.160 involving Neffield, who'd organized the hit on behalf of Silas, 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.160 is said to have come to light. According to one source, 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.600 after Pat Blow, Anne Miller, and Renee Brule went missing, 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:17.280 Neffeld apparently lodged an insurance claim for a boat matching 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.040 the description of the one the women were seen boarding 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.320 around noon on the day they disappeared, the inference being 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.280 that Silas had arranged to have them taken care of, 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:31.520 having possibly witnessed the failed attempt on George's life at 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:36.399 the Tri Color Stables, with Edward Nefhfeldt perhaps once again 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.560 doing the dirty work. Nehfeld is alleged to have told 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.119 his insurance company that the boat was destroyed in a fire, 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:50.159 However this is not being confirmed. By nineteen seventy, with 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.320 the women having been missing for four years, the case 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:58.320 was effectively dormant. Pat's father, Harold, however, had refused to 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.200 give up hope, and though the grief at his daughter's 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:05.000 loss could be crippling, he continued doing whatever he could 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:09.639 to find her. Whenever the weight of it threatened to 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.000 completely consume him, he would jump into his car and 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:16.840 drive out to Chesterton, Indiana, to speak with Sergeant Burke. 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.320 Although Burke had long since moved off the case, he 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:23.400 made an effort to keep on top of any new 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:28.159 information that came in, no matter how small. By then, 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.080 he'd come to the conclusion that the women had staged 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.520 their disappearance in order to escape the various problems in 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.560 their lives. Blow would often leave their meetings with a 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.000 renewed sense of hope and optimism at the prospect of 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.720 maybe one day seeing his daughter again, but the fog 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.520 of grief was never far away. Returning the moment, he 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.879 remembered just how unlikely it was the pat would not 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.200 have got some kind of message to them by the 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.399 Sergeant Burke retired the following year and took up a 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:04.880 security post in Saudi Arabia. Harold Blow and his wife 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:08.280 moved to Florida, from where Harold continued to trade letters 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:12.800 with Burke, discussing their various theories until the day he died. 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.800 In the early nineteen seventies, the case of the missing 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:26.280 women was taken over by Sergeant Michael Carmen of the 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:31.280 Indiana State Police. While familiarizing himself with the case, he 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.640 and State trooper Lou Weber came across an intriguing letter 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:39.960 written from a self described psychic in Montana, claiming to 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:45.480 know where the women's bodies were located. It read, I 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:49.120 visualize a cabin on Lake Michigan, not too far from 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:52.760 where the girl's beach blanket was found. There is dark 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:57.240 colored sand. There are rickety wooden stairs leading up from 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.200 the beach to a cabin on a bluff with a 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:05.160 broken lawnchair outside. Carmen discovered that the letter had never 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:09.080 been acted on, and with no new substantial leads cropping 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:12.320 up since Burke's retirement, he figured it was at least 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:14.600 worth the hour or so it would take to have 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:18.920 a look. Handing the letter to Webber, the state trooper 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.359 made his way to the Indiana June State Park. After 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:26.280 parking his cruiser as close as he could to the shore, 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:30.399 he continued the rest of the way on foot. After 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:33.480 walking almost two miles east from the spot on the 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.320 beach where the women had been sitting on that fateful day, 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:41.280 he came across an area of dark sand. Looking up, 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:45.520 he also spotted a crooked line of rickety wooden stairs 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:48.399 leading up from the beach and at the end of 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:53.439 that an old, dilapidated cabin. When he spotted the broken 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:56.879 lawn chair with the fabric torn out and flapping in 0:23:56.880 --> 0:24:01.119 the wind, he turned immediately and ran to the car. 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:06.080 Webber returned to the beach an hour later, joined this 0:24:06.119 --> 0:24:10.600 time by Sergeant Carmen and two other officers. Over the 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:14.040 next three days, the four of them dug and dug, 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:17.520 turning over every grain of sand they could find in 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:23.080 the cabin's vicinity, until eventually empty handed, they were forced 0:24:23.200 --> 0:24:27.760 to admit defeat. The bodies of the women, if they 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:30.800 had ever been there at all, were not there then. 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:41.720 Silas Jane was released from prison in nineteen seventy nine 0:24:41.760 --> 0:24:45.040 after spending less than ten years in jail for arranging 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:49.680 the murder of his half brother George. Despite regularly reporting 0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:54.080 a yearly income of only five thousand dollars, Silas somehow 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:57.200 found the money to buy homes for each of his sisters, 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:00.639 as well as a string of new Cadillacs. When he 0:25:00.680 --> 0:25:04.879 eventually died in nineteen eighty seven, succumbing to leukemia, he 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.240 was reported to be worth well over a million dollars, 0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:10.440 close to two and a half in to day's money. 0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:15.919 In the mid nineteen nineties, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, 0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:19.919 Tobacco and fire Arms looking into the disappearance of Helen Brack, 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:24.040 a well known socialite also with ties to the horse industry, 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:29.240 who went missing in nineteen seventy seven, stumbled upon something unexpected. 0:25:31.040 --> 0:25:35.760 While interviewing informants regarding the bracch case, one let slip 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:39.760 that a man named Kenneth Hansen confessed to them that 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:43.200 he'd murdered those three young boys in nineteen fifty five, 0:25:43.720 --> 0:25:48.880 found near Silas's stable. Hansen, who would have been twenty 0:25:48.880 --> 0:25:51.920 two at the time, was an employee of Silas's who 0:25:51.960 --> 0:25:56.119 worked at those same stables. At a subsequent trial, it 0:25:56.240 --> 0:25:59.320 was speculated that Hansen picked up the boys on their 0:25:59.320 --> 0:26:02.360 way home from the cinema in Chicago and drove them 0:26:02.400 --> 0:26:05.960 to Silas's ranch under the pretense of showing them the horses. 0:26:07.240 --> 0:26:10.360 Hansen was in the process of raping John and Anton 0:26:10.480 --> 0:26:15.280 Shusler when Robert Peterson caught him in the act. In 0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:20.080 a panic, Hansome murdered all three of them. When Silas 0:26:20.200 --> 0:26:23.160 is reported to have found out what happened, no doubt, 0:26:23.200 --> 0:26:27.399 fearful that Hansen would expose his criminal activities and of 0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:30.960 what Hanson's crime would mean for the reputation of his stables, 0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:35.239 he helped Hanson dispose of the bodies and covered the 0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:39.520 whole thing up. This was the secret that George's wife, 0:26:39.600 --> 0:26:43.960 Marion believed George took to the grave and ultimately cost 0:26:44.040 --> 0:26:49.600 him his life. There were rumors that Silas once confessed 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:52.520 to a cell mate while in prison for George's murder 0:26:53.280 --> 0:26:57.200 that he knew where pat Blow, Anne Miller, and Renee 0:26:57.200 --> 0:27:01.679 Brule were buried. It is also said that sometime before 0:27:01.720 --> 0:27:05.439 he died, Silas told a sheriff that three bodies were 0:27:05.480 --> 0:27:09.800 buried under his home. Supposedly, plans were made to search 0:27:09.920 --> 0:27:14.399 Silas's property until the sheriff involved was killed suddenly in 0:27:14.440 --> 0:27:18.879 a farming accident. Neither of these claims have been verified. 0:27:23.359 --> 0:27:26.080 If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:29.400 you can now do so via Patreon. To receive access 0:27:29.440 --> 0:27:32.560 to add three episodes, just go to patron dot com, 0:27:32.680 --> 0:27:36.240 Forward Slash Unexplained Pod to sign up, or if you'd 0:27:36.240 --> 0:27:38.600 like to make a one time donation, you can go 0:27:38.640 --> 0:27:43.399 to Unexplained podcast dot com. Forward Slash Support. All donations, 0:27:43.440 --> 0:27:47.280 no matter how large or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained, 0:27:47.320 --> 0:27:50.600 the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never 0:27:50.640 --> 0:27:53.439 before been covered on the show, is now available to 0:27:53.480 --> 0:27:57.399 buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, 0:27:57.520 --> 0:28:02.720 and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including 0:28:02.760 --> 0:28:05.879 the show's music, are produced by me Richard mc lane smith. 0:28:06.280 --> 0:28:09.400