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carmencita ago

A well known Horseman in the Chicago Area was Silas Jayne. He was owner of many stables and was also convicted of rape at the age of 17 and also spent time in jail for his bil's murder. He was linked to a brutal murder only after his death. They Schuessler boys and their friend made national news for the horrid sexual abuse. This was during the time HRC was living in Park Ridge. I have not connected them yet, but I can't believe she never went riding during that time. She was quite a tomboy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silas_Jayne

Silas Carter Jayne[1] (July 3, 1907 – July 13, 1987)[2] was a Chicago-based stable owner who was implicated in multiple notorious crimes.

He was convicted of rape as a teenager for which he served a year in reformatory, and convicted in 1973 for conspiracy to murder George Jayne, his maternal half-brother.[3] He served seven years imprisonment. After his death, Silas Jayne was linked to one of the most notorious crimes in the city's history, the 1955 Peterson–Schuessler murder of three young boys. Jayne is also suspected of having been involved in the 1956 murder of the two Grimes sisters, and in the 1977 disappearance of heiress Helen Brach.

At the age of 17, Jayne was convicted of rape and served one year in a state reformatory.[4]

At the age of 17, Jayne was convicted of rape and served one year in a state reformatory.[4]

In the 1950s, Jayne and his two brothers worked at the Green Tree Stables in the village of Norridge, and at the Elston Riding Academy in Chicago. They had found success in horse trading and, by the 1930s, they had secured ownership of a ranch near Woodstock, Illinois. They transported feral horses from the Western United States to the rail yards at Woodstock. (Btw, distance from Pk Ridge to Norridge is 5.4 mi)

Jayne, who was ineligible for the military draft due to his rape conviction, traded in horse meat during World War II. He used his profits to enter the horse show business, and his stable was patronized by the Chicago elite. He sold virtually worthless horses to prosperous men with daughters in their early teenage years, claiming that the horses were of the top quality needed if the daughters were to become champion riders.

Jayne was a heavy drinker with an overbearing and rough-spoken manner. Parents nevertheless allowed their daughters to spend extended periods of time at his stables unchaperoned. Jayne boasted to his associates of having molested many of these underage girls. When fathers complained about the poor quality of horses they had bought from him, he would tell them that their daughters had become notorious among his employees for their promiscuity. Though the accusation may have been groundless, scandal-wary fathers rarely pressed the point.[5]

It was suspected that allegations against Jayne were not investigated because he had friendly relations with police officers. He was not part of the Chicago Outfit, but his Idle Hour Stables (8600 West Higgins Road, Park Ridge, Illinois)[2] were patronized by "Mad Sam" DeStefano and other prominent gangsters. It was said that the gangsters "played cowboy" there, riding around on horses and firing guns into the air.[6]

So now we see that Jayne owned a Stable in Park Ridge. Not far from HRC. Also connections to Sam DeStafano very big in the Chgo. Mafia.

On October 18, 1955, the naked bodies of three young boys, John Schuessler, aged 13, his brother Anton Jr., aged 11, and their friend Robert Peterson, aged 14, were found in a ditch in the Robinson Woods Forest Preserve on the northwest side of Chicago. When found, they had been missing for two days.

The boys had traveled from Jefferson Park to downtown Chicago to see Walt Disney Productions' The African Lion at the Loop Theater, 165 North State Street,[8] on the afternoon of October 16.

Nearly forty years later, ATF agents investigating the February 17, 1977, disappearance of Brach's candy heiress Helen Brach were told by informants that Kenneth Hansen (one of Jayne's employees) had boasted of committing the murders and had threatened others that they would "end up like the Peterson boy." A second informant had told the FBI of Hansen's boasts in the 1970s, but apparently no action was taken.

It emerged that Hansen, who was 22 years old at the time, had met Peterson and the Schuesslers while they were hitchhiking after having last been seen by a classmate at the Monte Cristo Bowling Alley on 3326 West Montrose, about eight miles from the Loop theater. Hansen lured them into the Idle Hour stables under the pretext of showing them horses. When Peterson discovered Hansen sexually abusing the Schuessler brothers, Hansen had attacked all three and killed them. Jayne had been enraged at Hansen when he discovered what he had done. However, realizing the murders on his property had the potential to ruin him, Jayne concealed the crime. The bodies were put in a station wagon, and disposed of. The original forensic investigators in the case believed that marks on the bodies had been caused by the floor mats of a Packard station wagon that had been owned by both Hansen and Jayne in 1955.[9][10] The barn in which the murders allegedly occurred burned down on May 15, 1956, in a suspected arson.[11]

Neighbors had reported to the police that they had heard screams from the stables on the day the boys disappeared, but the leads were not followed up, despite the stable's proximity to the site where the bodies were found. According to a detective who worked on the case, Kenneth Hansen had preyed on hundreds of boys before his 1995 arrest and conviction for the murders. Hansen's conviction was overturned five years later on the grounds that the jury should not have heard prejudicial testimony regarding his frequent cruising the streets in search of boys to prey upon, whom he termed "chicken". Found guilty at a 2002 retrial with a subsequent affirmation of the verdict in a 2004 appeal, Hansen was sentenced to life imprisonment. He died at Pontiac Correctional Center on September 12, 2007.[5][12][13][14]

Jayne is suspected to have been behind the disappearance of Ann Miller, 21, Patricia Blough, 19, and Renee Bruhl, 20, who were last seen July 2, 1966 in Indiana Dunes State Park, after leaving their purses and car keys on the beach and boarding a boat similar to one owned by one of his stable workers. Blough and Miller boarded their horses at Silas Jayne's brother, George Jayne's, Tri-Color Farms riding stables[2] on 1200 West Algonquin Road (now a Harper College parking lot near Palatine, Illinois),[15] and may have been witnesses to the planting of the car bomb that killed 22-year-old Cheryl Lynn Rude there on June 14, 1965, as she attempted to move his Cadillac.[16] Following the incident, George rigged a device, consisting of the car key attached to a wooden pole, which enabled him to switch the ignition of vehicles while standing outside the passenger-side door.[17]

Silas Jayne contracted multiple hit teams, often simultaneously, in his many attempts to have George murdered.[2] In 1965, men hired by Silas backed out of a murder plot and alerted George, who convinced them to report Silas to the police. A sheriff's detective, posing as a prospective hitman, recorded Silas as he contracted for George's murder. Silas used the code phrase "It's time to buy a horse." He was then arrested for conspiracy to commit murder.

Silas was acquitted at his 1966 trial after the state's main witness claimed sudden amnesia, stating under oath, "I can`t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning, I'm sick."

Following this acquittal, George's office was burglarized. Around this time, Silas allegedly told one of George's employees: "Your boss will be out of business soon because I gave the IRS boys all the dope on him".[2] George was subsequently indicted for income tax fraud.

After numerous failed attempts, George Jayne was murdered on October 28, 1970. He was shot in the heart through his basement window in Inverness, Illinois while playing bridge with family on his son, George Jr.'s, sixteenth birthday.[2]

Silas Jayne, represented by attorney F. Lee Bailey at his trial,[18] was convicted in 1973 of conspiracy to murder George Jayne. He was sentenced to 6 – 20 years in prison and was released in 1979, having served just under seven years in the Vienna Correctional Center in southern Illinois.[19]

Silas was tried and acquitted of arson in 1980, after he allegedly had a former cellmate start a fire in a stable where men he had a grudge against kept their horses. Thirty-three horses perished in the fire.

Silas successfully claimed self-defense in gunning down Frank Michelle Jr. who, on January 19, 1969, at George's behest, was attempting to replace the battery of a malfunctioning tracking device on Silas' car. Michelle was shot nine times, and with three different weapons: an M1 carbine and .22- and .38-caliber pistols. Silas reportedly boasted of crushing the man's testicles, using vise-grip pliers.[20]

CONTINUED

carmencita ago

Helen Brach - Candy Heiress Murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Brach

Helen Voorhees Brach (born November 10, 1911 – disappeared February 17, 1977) was an American multimillionaire widow whose wealth had come from marrying into the E. J. Brach & Sons Candy Company fortune; she endowed the Helen V. Brach Foundation to promote animal welfare in 1974.[1] Brach disappeared on February 17, 1977 and was declared legally dead in May 1984. An investigation into the case uncovered serious criminal activity associated with Chicago stable owners including Silas Jayne and Richard Bailey. More than a decade later Bailey was charged with, but not convicted of, conspiring to murder Brach; he eventually received a long sentence after being convicted of defrauding her.

Helen Brach was born on November 10, 1911 on a small farm in Unionport, Ohio. Helen married her high school sweetheart in 1928; the couple had divorced by the time she was 21. Brach found work at a country club in Palm Beach, where she met and married millionaire, Frank Brach. The couple built a home in Fisher Island, Florida, shortly afterwards. The couple purchased another home in Glenview, Illinois closer to their Chicago factories. Helen and Frank spent most of their time in south Florida.

After a routine medical check-up at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Brach left for the return journey by air to her north suburban Chicago mansion on February 17, 1977. A gift shop assistant near the clinic insisted that Brach had said, "I'm in a hurry, my houseman is waiting." This is the last sighting of Brach by an independent witness.

The crew on the commercial airliner on which she was supposed to return did not report seeing her on the flight. Her houseman/chauffeur, Jack Matlick, said that he collected her at O'Hare Airport, further asserting that Brach spent four days without making a call before she was dropped off at O'Hare for a flight to Florida.

Matlick was the focus of police attention during the investigation. Matlick always claimed to be innocent and angrily denied to reporters that he knew what happened to Brach, but a former federal agent who worked on the case said after Matlick's death that he was indeed responsible.[2][3] Brach's brother was of the opinion that Matlick had been responsible for the murder of his sister without any involvement from Bailey or horse racing racketeers.[4][5][6][7] On February 14, 2011, Matlick died in a Pennsylvania nursing home at the age of 79.[2]

Brach was declared dead in 1984.[8] No one was ever convicted in Brach's disappearance, although Bailey was sentenced to 30 years in prison for defrauding her.[9][10]

According to a case[11] filed in the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit, Bailey, the owner of Bailey Stables and Country Club Stables targeted wealthy middle-aged or older women with little knowledge of the horse business who had recently been widowed or divorced. In 1975, Bailey's brother, Paul, sold her three horses for $98,000; unknown to Brach, Bailey also participated in the sale, and the horses were worth less than $20,000. Brach also bought a group of expensive brood mares. Early in 1977, Bailey arranged an extensive showing for Brach, hoping to persuade her to invest $150,000 in more horses. An appraiser Brach hired recommended she invest nothing in training one of her original three purchases, contrary to the $50,000 estimate of the trainer recommended by Bailey.

In 1989 the investigation was reopened and turned up evidence of criminal activity by associates of Bailey such as SILAS JAYNE, Bailey was charged with conspiring with several others (named but not charged) to kill Brach, however some (including her brother) questioned if Bailey had in fact been guilty of this.[4] Bailey was not convicted of Brach's murder but sentenced to life imprisonment for defrauding the candy empire heiress; the judge made it clear that the sentence reflected evidence that Bailey was involved in a conspiracy to murder her.[9] On March 21, 2005, in a tersely worded two-paragraph opinion, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bailey's request for a new sentencing hearing for the fraud charges to take into account new evidence suggesting his innocence of the murder conspiracy, saying that the "new evidence does not establish by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant is actually innocent of conspiring to murder Helen Brach and soliciting her murder."[12]

Brach's parents and husband are interred in Unionport, Ohio, near her birthplace of Hopedale. The marble monument includes an empty tomb with her name on it. In addition, two of Helen's dogs, Candy and Sugar, are buried there as well.

There was talk from what I remember from years ago, that some thought she may have been ground up in a huge machine they used to grind food for her large dogs. As crazy as that sounds, to me it is totally possible. I also feel her brother and the mob played a large part in her death along with SILAS JAYNE.