Unsolved ’66: Chicago
Valerie Percy's killer murdered sixty-nine others, and it was covered up. (21st in a series)
Those following this series may recall reasons to believe that William Thoresen murdered Valerie Percy and Debbie Fijan, near Chicago in 1966, and was the Zodiac Killer.
If you do, you may also recall two memorable and unusual things about Zodiac; his penchant to communicate by phone and by mail; and, while he certainly did murder individuals, he did not shy away from—if not seemingly preferred to—attack more than one person at a time.
With these things in mind, consider that between 1955 and 1960, three brutal multiple murders occurred in, or not far from, Chicago. On October 16, 1955, three boys named Robert Peterson and John and Anton Schuessler, were beaten and strangled, their bodies found naked and atop one another beside a forest preserve parking area just beyond the city limits.
On January 23, 1957, the bodies of two Chicago teens, sisters Barbara and Patricia Grimes, who had been missing since they attended a movie on December 28th, were found naked and piled atop one another beside a roadway just beyond the city limits.
On March 14, 1960, three Chicago area women, Lillian Oetting and Mildred Lindquist, both 50, and Frances Murphy, 47, were beaten to death in a remote area of Starved Rock State Park.
Two of the women had been tied up prior to being bludgeoned. Such a scenario suggests this was done under the guise of a robbery as happened with Zodiac victims Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell and was theorized by police happened with two presumed Zodiac victims, Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards, who were murdered near Santa Barbara, California, on June 4, 1963.
Prior to the Starved Rock slayings, in Chicago, Lorretta Grimes, mother of the murdered sisters, received a phone call from a sinister-sounding man she believed was their killer. He said “This is another one the cops won’t solve…” before slamming down the phone.
That sounds a lot like an anonymous caller who phoned police in Ocean City, California in April, 1962 and boasted “I am going to pull something here in Oceanside and you’ll never be able to figure it out.” The call was made the night before area cab driver, Raymond Davis, was senselessly murdered in Zodiac-like fashion.
No less suspicious, in her book William Thoresen’s wife wrote that he began traveling to Southern California in 1962. What’s more, when she and William left Illinois in April, 1960, the month following the Starved Rock slayings, the multiple murders in and near Chicago ceased.
Further incriminating to William is, in order to locate witnesses, police set up a roadblock the day after the bodies were discovered in the park. An auto dealer who passed by the park shortly after the victims arrived, told police that he saw a man talking with three women in an area near where the women parked their car.
Steve Stout, author of a book on the Starved Rock case, reported that investigators were intrigued by the accuracy of the witness’ description of the victims. There was also his description of the suspect; about 25; under six feet tall; weighing approximately165 pounds and with wavy, reddish brown hair.
According to his wife, William was six foot one, weighted 175 pounds, and had reddish brown hair. A photo of him that is in her book and that was taken the year before the Starved Rock murders reveals that his hair was wavy.
The witness was not in law enforcement, security, or an investigator but was a car dealer. Still, his description of the suspect was within two inches of William’s height, ten pounds of his weight, three years of his age, and with hair that could not be closer to William’s, which with red in it was uncommon.
However, Chester Weger, an employee at the park, was convicted of the murders. In 1979, Weger denied committing the killings and told Stout that he would not cut a deal by admitting to the crimes even if it ensured his early release.
In February 2020, Weger, who was convicted on the basis of evidence that seems thin, to put it mildly, was released from prison after serving nearly sixty years. “They ruined my life,” he said shortly before his release.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, thirty-nine years after the Peterson and Schuessler boys were murdered, Kenneth Hansen was convicted of those slayings in a case where a prosecutor admitted he had a weak case against Hansen. “‘After 40 years go by, you don't solve a case by physical evidence,’ Cook County State's Atty. Jack O'Malley said at a press conference announcing the charges,” the Chicago Tribune reported.
O’Malley’s statement is ludicrous. Very old cases are solved with physical evidence. Prosecutors also argued that Hansen, a gay man, was motivated to murder the boys after molesting two of them. There was no evidence the boys had been molested.
For obvious reasons, Hansen’s prosecutors ignored similarities between the Peterson-Schuessler case and the murders of the Grimes sisters, which many long believed were committed by the same person. Of course, it would be hard to argue a gay man, motivated by lust, murdered the sisters, or the Starved Rock victims.
Most importantly, once again, as with the Starved Rock victims, facts in the Peterson-Schuessler and Grimes sisters cases points to William Thoresen. So does physical evidence.
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