Illinois and federal authorities probing a scheme to kill race and show horses for insurance money say they have cracked a series of the most sensational unsolved crimes in Chicago history.
Richard Bailey, 62, described as a gigolo who cheated lonely widows out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, was charged July 27 in connection with the 1977 disappearance of Helen Vorhees Brach, the Brach candy heiress whose will founded the Brach Foundation, a major source of funding for animal-related charities.
August 12, stable owner Kenneth Hansen, a Bailey associate, was charged with the October 1955 kidnap-rape-murders of Robert Peterson, 14, and brothers John and Anton Schluessler, ages 13 and 11, whose deaths, some sociologists say, changed the attitudes of America toward hitchhiking and supervision of children, and reinforced homophobia for a generation of parents.
Hansen at the time worked for Silas Jayne, a stable owner and convicted rapist. Witnesses said they heard screams coming from Jayne's stable the night the boys were killed. Jayne was questioned but never charged.
In 1971 Hansen was indicted for conspiracy in the 1970 murder of Jayne's brother George, but the charge was dropped for lack of evidence. In 1973, Silas Jayne was convicted of the same murder. He was paroled in 1979, and died of leukemia in 1987,
In addition to the Brach disappearance, Hansen and the late Jayne are reportedly now also linked to the 1956 murders of Barbara and Patricia Grimes, 15 and 13; the 1965 car bombing murder of Cheryl Lynn Rude, 22, who died while trying to move George Jayne's car; the 1966 disappearances of Ann Miller, 21, Patricia Blough, 19, and Renee Bruhl, 20, from Indiana Dunes State Park, two of whom rode horses at stables owned by George Jayne; and the 1968 ambush shooting of Cook County Sheriff's Officer Ralph Probst, who was looking into horse-related crime.
Numerous witnesses have now come forward to testify that Hansen molested them when they were hitchhiking; committed arson to conceal evidence; and boasted of the boys' murders.
He was also well-known to the Hooved Animal Humane Society. Whenever he was charged with horse abuse--usually for starving horses--he would sell the horses in question for slaughter, HAHS investigator Sally Bradley told the Chicago Tribune that she could never convince a judge to sign an impoundment order. After all, Hansen associated with the elite of the horsey set, many of whom are now indicted with him. References
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