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Silas Jayne

Silas Jayne was a Chicago stable owner who is believed to have been involved in some of the most notorious crimes and disappearances in Chicago history.

Background
At 17 Jayne spent a year in prison after being convicted of rape, working alongside other family members buying and selling horses he profited from the demand from horse-meat during WW2 later establishing himself in a high-end show horse stable which catered to the Chicago elite. He especially exploited prosperous businessmen with early teenage daughters who were extortionately overcharged for horses which he would claim they needed to become champion riders. Jayne had a weather-beaten face, was overbearing and rough spoken however the parents allowed their daughters to spend extended periods of time at the stables unchaperoned and he boasted to associates of molesting many of the under age girls. Fathers who complained of being cheated on the horses were dissuaded from going to the police by Jayne telling them that their daughter had become notorious among his employees for her promiscuity. This was often completely untrue but the father usually did not press the point, fearing a scandal.

Peterson-Schuessler murders
On 16th October 1955 the naked bodies of three young boys John Schuessler aged 13, brother Anton aged 11 and their friend 14-year-old Robert Peterson were found dumped in a ditch in a forest preserve, they had been missing for two days. In the mid seventies an informant told FBI agents that Kenneth Hansen, an employee of Silas Jayne had confessed to the killings. Hansen had had given them a lift and lured them to the stables to see horses, when discovered abusing Peterson he had gone berserk and strangled all three. Silas Jayne, realizing that the crime could ruin him had helped conceal the evidence by loading the bodies into a station wagon for disposal. The 1955 forensic investigators had bevieved the marks on the bodies had been to come from the mats of the model station wagon that Hanson and Jayne both owned. A neighbor had heard screams and reported it to the police but the lead was not followed up despite the closeness of the stable to the site where the bodies were found and Hansen's reputation for non consensual advances to young male hitchhikers.

Other murders and disappearances
Silas Jayne is also suspected of being involved in the disappearance of animal lover heiress Helen Brach, a policeman who was an associate of Silas Jayne is believed to have been paid to kill Helen Brach after she had been cheated out of a six figure sum. Silas Jayne is strongly suspected to have been behind the disappearance of Ann Miller, 21, Patricia Blough, 19, and Renee Bruhl, 20 from Indiana Dunes State Park on  July 2, 1966. Two of the girls, Blough and Miller, boardied their horses at the same Illinois stable as Silas's hated business rival half-brother George Jayne and may have been witnesses to the planting of a bomb which killed another young woman 22-year-old Cheryl Rude, formerly employed by Silas who went to work for George Jayne and died in an explosion after starting his car. The 1968 murder of Cook County Sheriff's Officer Ralph Probst (shot though his kitchen window) is linked to Silas Jayne; Probst was investigating the horse racket at the time and had told friends he was working on 'something big'. (Sam DeStefano a suspect in Probst's shooting was said to ride horses around Silas Jayne's stable firiing a sixgun into the air.) Hansen and Silas Jayne are suspects in the  murder of the Grimes sisters. Silas Jayne used an M1 carbine to shoot dead Frank Michelle who, while working for George, was placing a bugging device on his car but successfully claimed self defense.

Murder of George Jayne, imprisonment and death
George Jayne was murdered in 1970, Silas Jayne was convicted of conspiracy and imprisoned. The circumstances of George Jayne's death (he was shot though a window while sitting in the basment of his home) bore a close resemblance to the assassination of Ralph Probst. After release from prison Silas died in 1987.