WARNING: EXPLICIT MATERIAL

Silas Jayne

Birth Name:

Silas Carter Jayne

Birth Date:

July 3, 1907

Birth Place:

Cuba Township, Lake County, Illinois

Death Date:

July 13, 1987

Place of Death:

Elgin, Illinois

Age:

Cause of Death:

Leukemia

Cemetery Name:

Cremated

Claim to Fame:

Crime and their Victims

Notorious Chicago-based stable owner implicated in multiple disappearances and murders including the famous 1955 Peterson-Schuessler murder, involvement in the 1956 murder of the two Grimes sisters, and in the 1977 disappearance of heiress Helen Brach.

One thing that all of these murders have in common… Silas Jayne. Silas Jayne is suspected being directly responsible for or ordering the murders of:

— the 1955 disappearance and murder of John Schuessler, aged 13, his brother Anton Jr., aged 11, and their friend Robert Peterson, aged 14
— the 1977 disappearance and murder of Brach’s candy heiress Helen Brach
— the 1965 murder of Cheryl Lynn Rude of a car bombing
— the 1966 disappearance and murder of Ann Miller, 21, Patricia Blough, 19, and Renee Bruhl, 20 (these women may have been witnesses to the planting of the car bomb that killed 22-year-old Cheryl Lynn Rude)
— 1969 murder of Frank Michelle Jr. (Silas successfully claimed self-defense despite the fact that Michelle was shot nine times, and with three different weapons: an M1 carbine and .22- and .38-caliber pistols, and Silas reportedly boasted of crushing the man’s testicles, using vise-grip pliers)
— In 1973, Jayne went to prison for the murder of his half brother, George Jayne, who he had hired a hitman to kill George Jayne