Unsolved ‘66: Chicago Part 6
Valerie Percy's killer murdered sixty-nine others, and it was covered up. (27th in a series.)
Recently, the question was raised whether there is direct evidence linking William Thoresen to the murders of three boys Robert Peterson and John and Anton Schuessler in Chicago in 1955.
The answer is no. But there is unique circumstantial evidence, a set of facts from which one could infer Thoresen’s guilt. There’s also something else. Police theorized that whoever murdered the boys also murdered Chicago teen Judith Anderson, the Grimes sisters, and three women at Starved Rock State Park.
Thoresen was a suspect in the Anderson case, and there's reason to believe metallic evidence implicates him in both her and the boys’ case. But what has yet to be revealed in this series is not just phone calls and letters implicate him in the Grimes and Zodiac Killer cases.
It’s what was posted anonymously in 2014, deep inside a crime-related website by one who claimed involvement with a Chicago-area group that was dedicated to cracking the Grimes case.
Though I was skeptical at first, the source revealed that the group had met with Chicago police cold case investigators, members of the Chicago Crime Commission, and an author who wrote about the sisters slayings.
Intriguingly, he mentioned a third girl, a witness, who left a Chicago theater with Barbara and Patricia Grimes on Friday, December 28, 1956, the night they disappeared. About this he wrote the following:
The three girls left together at (by my estimation) no later than 10:00. They proceeded eastbound on Archer Avenue and, after walking a few blocks, a black car pulled up in front of them on a cross street.
This detail caught my attention because of reasons to believe that Thoresen murdered several young women and girls in southeast Michigan, beginning in 1967 with the slaying of Mary Fleszar, age nineteen, in Ypsilanti. The witness who last saw Fleszar alive said she refused to get into a car that was driven by a man who used the car to cut her off as she walked down a sidewalk. Fleszar’s case is unsolved.
The source wrote about the Grimes case: “A man was alone in the car and offered the three girls a ride home. They accepted, and all three got into the back seat.” This is credible, as I have heard women express their belief that William was attractive. This is a reason to believe that he was a prolific killer. (Ted Bundy was said to have been able to use his good looks to lure numerous female victims into his car.) The source continued:
According to the third girl (who sat behind the driver) there was little conversation other than he asked if the girls went to Kelly High School as they passed it. As they approached the intersection of Archer and Pershing, the driver made an abrupt right turn then another abrupt left into an alley. Coincidentally, that particular alley was behind the home of the third girl. The alley was full of potholes so the car went slowly. The third girl saw a neighbor of hers emptying garbage in the alley and she panicked because she feared that he would tell her father that she was in a car with a strange man, so she quickly exited the car.
She doesn't remember any particular fear of the driver and the Grimes girls were acting normal in the seat next to her. After she exited the vehicle, she quickly went into her home. She heard of the disappearances the next day and became terrified that the police and her father would find out she was in the car. She described the driver as in his twenties, dark hair and taller. She didn't see his face clearly since she sat right behind him.
When asked whether he thought her story was credible, the source wrote: “I have personally talked to the third girl. She is still alive and lives west of Chicago. She still feels a sense of responsibility for what happened to the girls.” He explained that her neighbor had seen her leave the car and reported it to police when news of the sisters’ disappearance broke. Police questioned her the next day, but out of fear, she denied having seen or been with the Grimes sisters the night before.
What really got my attention is the witness said that the man had “an unusual type of voice.” This sounds like a suspect numerous witnesses described in cases from the Zodiac to the Bricca and Sims family murders (as detailed in my book Zodiac Maniac).
Though basic, the girl’s description of the man’s voice is consistent with how you might expect William Thoresen to have sounded after a childhood spent grappling with a stuttering issue that his neighbor told the FBI remained “severe” in 1966.
What’s more, the third girl’s physical description of the man fits Thoresen. She said he was taller. William was six foot one, which in 1956 was considered to be on the tall side. She also said he was in his twenties and had dark hair. William turned twenty a month before the sisters were murdered, and his hair was reddish brown. It was night, and she only saw the man when he was in the car. If the man was Thoresen, this would account for her merely describing his hair as dark.
The witness recalled that she jumped out of the car to avoid being seen by a neighbor. This makes sense; there’s no reason to believe that the man would have stopped the car to let her out if she'd simply asked.
Because of the similarities of the Grimes case to the murders of the three boys, it’s likely that the witness, the third girl, would have been slain along with the Grimes sisters that night had she not jumped out of the car. The man in the car almost certainly murdered the Grimes sisters. After killing the three boys at once, previously it’s not a stretch to suggest that he sought out three more victims the night the Grimes sisters disappeared. The reason that the third girl survived was because he pulled the car into the alley on her block. He had to drive slowly because it contained potholes, and one of her neighbors happened to be there.
Police believed the killer who murdered the Chicago boys and the Grimes sisters also murdered three women at Starved Rock State Park two years after the sisters were slain. A witness in that case described a suspect he saw talking with the women minutes before they were beaten and strangled. The description matches William Thoresen down to his reddish-brown hair.
Suspiciously, in a recent story in Chicago Magazine, the suspect’s height was reduced by several inches. This is but one reason to believe that a cover-up regarding Thoresen continues.
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The story covering the Grimes sisters mystery has a lot of attention on it over the years. There is a facebook Group for members on this topic. And the victims were left with few clue,s.