Silas Jayne

Silas Carter Jayne (July 3, 1907 – July 13, 1987) was a Chicago-based stable owner, horse trainer, and horse trader who was heavily involved in criminal activity, including fraud, intimidation, arson, and murder. He covered up the infamous Peterson-Schuessler murders and, much later, arranged for the killing of his stepbrother George. In 1980, Silas was also tried and acquitted of arson, after he allegedly persuaded a former cellmate of his to start a fire in a stable, where men against whom Silas had a grudge kept their horses. Silas died of leukemia in 1987, aged 80.

Life history and background Jayne was born on July 3, 1907, in Cuba Township, in Lake County, Illinois. He was one of four boys and eight girls born to Arthur and Katherine Jayne. Silas had a half-brother, George William Jayne, born in 1923 to his mother and her employer, married attorney George William Spunner. When Silas was tried for rape at age 17, his stepfather, acting as his attorney, wrote to the judge saying that Silas was a wild young man who would not be hurt by a year in jail. Silas was convicted and served one year at Pontiac Correctional Center. About the same time, Silas and his brothers began operating the Elston Riding Academy at 5663 Elston Avenue in Chicago. The academy hosted the Elston Saddle Club which held an annual horse show and rodeo featuring the Jayne brothers and their students.

In 1933, Frank Jayne began operating a livestock hauling and trading business in Woodstock, Illinois. The Jayne brothers shipped feral horses from the Western United States by railroad to Woodstock, where they were herded through the streets to Frank's corral south of the city. The best horses were trained and the rest were shipped to Rockford, Illinois to be slaughtered for dog food. In 1936, George Jayne began holding annual horse shows at his Sportsman's Riding Stables in Morton Grove, Illinois. The following year, the Elston Saddle Club held a show in Woodstock. Frank Jayne purchased a farm west of Elgin, Illinois, which he called Our Day Farm.

DeForest Jayne earned many trophies for his horsemanship and was the instructor at the Elston Riding Academy. On October 15, 1938, DeForest's fiancée, Mae Sweeny, committed suicide by swallowing arsenic. Five days later, DeForest, dressed in his best Western attire, killed himself with a 12-gauge shotgun on Sweeny's grave.

Jayne had acquired a reputation for bullying behavior.

Jayne 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. Parents allowed their daughters to spend extended periods of time at Jayne's 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.

In the early 1950s, Silas wanted his half-brother, George, to purchase his Green Tree Stables, but George, whose Sportsman's Riding Stables was prospering, refused. Shortly thereafter, while George and his family were wintering in Florida, his house, located at the Sportsman's Riding Stables, burned down. The cause of the fire was never determined, but George suspected that Silas was responsible. and after that he bought Green Tree Stables from Silas, renaming it Happy Days Stables. In 1954, Silas moved his Idle Hour Stables to a larger facility at 8600 West Higgins Road in Park Ridge, Illinois, not far from George's Happy Days Stables. on the afternoon of October 16. Nearly forty years later, ATF agents investigating the 1977 disappearance of candy heiress Helen Brach were told by informants that Silas Jayne's former employee, Kenneth Hansen, had boasted of committing the murders at the Idle Hour Stables. Hansen had threatened others that they would "end up like the Peterson boy." A second informant, Red Wemette, 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, 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 attacked all three and killed them. Jayne became enraged at Hansen when he discovered what he had done, but realized the murders on his property had the potential to ruin him and 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 model that had been owned by both Hansen and Jayne in 1955. The barn in which the murders allegedly occurred burned down on May 15, 1956, in a suspected arson.

Attacks on George Jayne In October 1959, George Jayne moved his stable business from the Happy Days Stables to the 95-acre Tri-Color Farm near his home in Inverness, Illinois. Silas' competition with George, both in business and at horse shows, became intense and led to a prolonged effort to kill George. Cheryl Rude was a professional rider who went to work for George after she was fired by Silas. At the Oak Brook Hounds Horse Show in 1961, Rude won a jumping class over protests from Silas, and George's daughter beat Silas' best horse to take the top prize, after which Silas stood in the middle of the horse ring and shouted at George "I'll never talk to you again, you bastard!" This was the beginning of a campaign of harassment against George.

In 1962, shots were fired at George's office and the office was burglarized. At various times, George's tires were punctured, lug nuts on his truck tires were loosened, sugar was poured into his gas tank, cars attempted to run him off the road at night, two of his horses were poisoned, and dynamite was left by his back door, but the fuse fizzled out. In March 1963, while working late at his office, George, perhaps sensing danger, departed in a borrowed car leaving the lights on and his own car at the office. That night twenty-eight bullets were fired into the office. In 1965, Eddie Moran confessed that he and another man were paid $300 to kill George, and it was they who had fired the shots into George's office in 1963. In May 1963, when George's horse beat Silas' at the Lake Forest Horse Show, Silas again threatened George, "I'll kill you, you son of a bitch!" After this on five or more occasions Silas made more threats to kill George.

Indiana Dunes State Park disappearances Ann Miller, 21, and her two friends Patricia Blough, 19, and Renee Bruhl, 19, vanished from Indiana Dunes State Park on July 2, 1966, a little more than a year after the murder of Cheryl Rude. At around 10:00 a.m. the women arrived at the state park and hiked to a location about 100 yards from the Lake Michigan beach. A couple claimed to have seen the women leave their belongings on the beach and enter the water together around 12 p.m. The witnesses later spotted them conversing with an unidentified man sailing a white boat, 14-to-16-feet-long, with a blue cabin and an outboard motor. According to the witnesses, the women boarded the boat and sailed westward with the captain. Around sunset, the couple discovered that the women's things were still on the beach, unclaimed. They informed a park ranger of their findings. The women have never been seen again.

Blough, Miller, and Bruhl frequently rode horses at George Jayne's Tri-Color Stables. The phone numbers for George and Silas Jayne were found among one of the missing women's possessions. Investigators have explored the possibility that Blough, Miller and/or Bruhl may have witnessed the bomb that killed Cheryl Rude being planted. After the women vanished Silas Jayne allegedly told a sheriff that he had three human bodies buried beneath his house. Law enforcement took the comment seriously and planned to search Silas's property; the sheriff involved was killed in a farming accident before the search took place. As a result, the lead was left cold.

After the conspiracy charges against Silas Jayne were dropped, George Jayne's office was burglarized. Silas told one of George's employees "I gave the IRS all the dope on him [George]. We got enough out of his office to put him in jail for good." George was subsequently indicted for income tax fraud. A jury found him not guilty on November 2, 1966.

Killing of Frank Michelle Jr. Fearing more attacks, George Jayne hired Frank Michelle Sr., a former chief of police of Inverness, to provide security for his home and business. He hired Michelle's son, Frank Michelle Jr., to surreptitiously place on Silas Jayne's car a transmitter which would alert George whenever the car came within five miles. The transmitter was periodically monitored and when it stopped transmitting after twelve days, Frank Michelle Jr. was dispatched to change the battery. On January 19, 1969, Michelle's wife dropped him off near Silas Jayne's home at Our Day Farm.

Michelle would not have found the car with the transmitter, because Jayne had traded it in for another car. According to Jayne, his door bell rang and when he asked who was there, he was shot at through the door. He returned fire and saw Michelle, who he did not recognize, crawl away leaving a bloody trail on the lawn. Jayne grabbed additional guns and followed Michelle shooting him to death. Michelle was shot nine times with three different weapons: an M1 carbine and .22- and .38-calibre pistols. The shooting was ruled to be self-defense and no charges were brought against Jayne. Jayne boasted of crushing Michelle's testicles using vise-grip pliers. When investigators tried to verify this claim, they discovered that the coroner's report and medical records had gone missing.

Helen did have a houseman named Jack Matlick. After Helen's husband, Frank, died, he helped manage her home. One of the richest candy manufacturers in the world, Frank had owned the E. J. Brach & Sons Candy Company. Helen was working as a coat-check lady at the Palm Beach Country Club in Florida when he first met her. After being married, they split their time between renting a home in Palm Beach in the winter and living in Chicago, during the summer. Frank died in 1970; her estimated net worth after his death was $20 million.

The flight crew could not recall anyone who matched Helen's description on the trip that day, despite Matlick's claim that he met her at O'Hare International Airport.

Richard Bailey, whom Brach had been dating at the time of her disappearance and who was meant to meet her when she went to Florida, resisted attempts to question him after hiring an attorney; he refused to even acknowledge knowing Brach. He was a prominent player in the city's equestrian industry and was the proprietor of Country Club Stables and Bailey Stables. Around Chicago, Bailey had a reputation as a con-artist who preyed on wealthy middle-aged ladies who had recently been widowed or divorced in order to defraud them of their money through poor horse investments. Helen had been introduced to the horse industry by Bailey; according to her accountant, she had spent $250,000 on horses.

Helen had purchased some horses from Bailey and his brother for considerably more than they were worth. Helen was declared legally dead in 1984; until 1989, when a prosecutor looking into horse fraud gave Helen's case more attention, it remained open but inactive. It was revealed that Bailey was acquainted with Silas Jayne. At the age of 79, Matlick died at a Pennsylvania nursing facility on February 14, 2011.

However, authorities believe that both Matlick and Bailey were both engaged in Helen's alleged kidnapping. They hypothesised that Helen realised Bailey had been defrauding her and was preparing to report him to the police and have him jailed when he conspired with others and had her killed. In 1994, Bailey was accused of committing several acts of fraud as well as conspiring to commit murder, soliciting to commit murder, and causing the murder of Helen. Bailey entered a guilty plea to racketeering, conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, and money laundering. But before a federal judge, he denied defrauding Helen or being connected to her abduction. A federal judge ruled that Bailey had conspired to kill Helen after hearing the evidence against him in Helen's case and gave him a life sentence. Later, the term was lowered to 30 years. Although it is thought that Bailey did not act alone in Helen's case, no one else was ever put on trial in connection with her abduction.

Plemmons was a con-artist who gave conflicting accounts of his role in Helen's death. However, his earlier testimony had assisted in the murder conviction of another individual; at Kenneth Hansen's 1994 trial for the 1955 killings of the Peterson-Schuessler boys, he provided evidence against Hansen. A ruby ring, which according to him dropped off Brach's finger when he was getting rid of her body, is one piece of evidence that backed his statement. He kept the ring and gave it to the police afterwards, who later identified it as hers. Plemmons' testimony prompted Bailey to request a fresh sentence hearing, claiming that the proof showed he was not responsible for Helen's abduction and that he should be freed from prison as a result. However, in 2005, the court dismissed his appeal, concluding that the evidence was insufficient to support a reduction in his sentence and, in any event, did not disprove his involvement in Helen's murder. Plemmons lives in Florida; at the age of 90, Bailey was freed from prison in 2019. In 2022, Bailey released a book with the Dorrance Publishing Company entitled Golden Tongue: The Innocent Man that Killed Her?