In the summer of 1966, three young women head to the beaches of Lake Michigan and are never seen again, setting off a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.If you have any information about the disappearances of Patricia Blough, Ann Miller, and Renee Bruhl, please contact the Indiana State Police tip line at 317-232-8248, or the Westchester Police Department at 708-345-0060.To read about the “maternity homes” we discuss in this episode, please refer to this Scary Mommy article. And if you also believe women's healthcare should be about WOMEN, head over to www.congress.gov/contact-us to find your representative’s contact information and let them know YOUR concerns about H.Res.7. Also, be sure to check out Park Predators' coverage of another Indiana Dunes case: The Bike! Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/infamous-the-indiana-dunes-disappearances/Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.The Crime Junkie Merch Store is NOW OPEN! Shop the exclusive Life Rule #10 Tour collection before it’s gone for good! Don’t miss your chance - visit the store now! Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
What happened to Patricia Blough, Ann Miller, and Renee Bruhl at Indiana Dunes?
Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And we actually have a special guest today. If you hear a little whimpers or tippy taps or anything. Or snores. For the first time since like early days Crime Junkie, old man Chuck is in the room while we're recording. So please forgive us. But our 14-year-old man wanted to cuddle today and I'm allowing it. Totally.
And it's not going to keep me from telling you an incredible story. And that story is a mystery right out of our home state of Indiana. But listen, Brett, the circumstances of this are so foreign that I've heard this story, but it always felt so far away to me. We're talking horse mobsters, illegal medical boats operating out in open waters. There has been no case like this before or since.
And that's why it's one of Indiana's most infamous cases. The workday has barely started on Monday, July 4th, 1966, when Indiana Dunes State Park, which today is surrounded by Indiana Dunes National Park, like it's like a whole thing anyways, Superintendent William Svedek is getting a panicked call on his office phone.
The caller IDs himself as Harold Blau, and he's like, look, my daughter and her friends were at your park on Saturday. It's Monday now, and they haven't come home. My wife and I are super worried. Now, all of these are, you know, these are three young women. Harold's daughter, Patricia, she's 19. Her friends, Ann Miller and Renee Bruhl, are around the same age, like 21 and 19, respectively.
But Patricia still lives at home, and she wouldn't leave for days without giving her parents a heads up. And Patricia had even told her mom Saturday, that morning when she left, that she would be home that night for dinner. And the other girls were supposed to be home too, but none of them returned to their Chicago homes just over the state line.
Svedek tells Harold, okay, listen, I'll look into it. But this uneasy feeling starts to creep in his belly because he might already know something about the missing girls, and it could be bad.
You see, two days before, on Saturday, a park ranger had brought a bunch of random items into his office saying that there were things that had been left on the beach of Lake Michigan by three women who went into the water and boarded a boat around noon that day, but then never returned. How did they know that? Because there were witnesses.
There were some teenagers nearby that had seen them get onto the boat. They saw them leave their stuff. And then they alerted the ranger when they were, like, those teenagers were getting ready to go and the stuff was still there. Because it seemed like this is the kind of stuff that you, like, wouldn't, you would leave only if you were planning to come back, right?
Like, there's, like, the thermos, some sunglasses, lotion, those kind of things. Even more significant items, too, like cash, a purse, clothes, a pair of shoes. Like, they should have been back.
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