The Schuessler-Peterson murders. Chicago, 1955. Documents #1

This post is mainly meant for english-speaking readers.

Sunday, April 8, 1956.

Chicago Daily Tribune

HOW FALL RAIN HID BOY KILLING CLEWS

[April 16 will mark the end of the sixth month since the mysterious slaying of three Chicago school boys. Tribune reporters John Gavin and Joseph Egelhof have made an exhaustive re-examination of the events that preceded the crime and the unsuccesful efforts of the authorities to solve it. This is the first report on their investigation.]

Mrs. Dorothy Peterson, 37, leaned out the front door of her home at 5510 Farragut av. to watch her son, Robert, 14, walk down the street toward a Milwaukee av. bus stop with his two friends.

Robert was in the middle. On either side were John Schuessler, 13, who was in the eight grade with Robert at the Farnsworth school, 5414 N. Linder av. and John's brother, Anton Jr., 11, a sixth grader.

It was 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16, 1955. The temperature stood at 53. A heavy rain had fallen in early morning but only occasional showers were forecast for the day. The boys were bareheaded, but wore jackets, Robert's was black and bore a White Sox emblem. John and Anton had blue Cubs jackets and Anton's had lost the "U" of its emblem.

Rain falls lightly

By the time a new rain began 90 minutes later, the boys probably were enjoying the nature movie, "The African Lion", in a Loop theater. The rain fell lightly but steadily from 5 p.m. until after midnight, with measurable ammounts in each hour.

Two days later the naked, bruised, and strangled bodies of the boys were found in Robinson reserve woods. Robert's body was between the other two. Now, after nearly six months' investigation of the crime that shocked the country, that freak ruin looms as the big break the killer -or killers- got. It kept potential witnesses inside and closed windows and doors.

These were ordinary looking boys who walked away from Mrs. Peterson. Short haircuts, satin baseball jackets, jeans, and gym shoes do not stand out, especially if the clothing is old and worn.

Two inches shorter

Robert had blue eyes and brown hair, weighed 110, and stood 5 feet 3. John had the same color of eyes and hair and was the same height, but was 10 pounds lighter. Anton had brown eyes, brown hair, weighed 90 pounds, and was two inches shorter.

The Peterson boy had been reared to like sports by his father, Malcolm, 40, a carpenter and Little League coach. In the fall the father was taking him bowling twice a week. Robert was bright and assertive perhaps because he was seven years older than any of the other three Peterson children.

John and Anton had received a more sheltered upbringing from their parents, Anton Schuessler, 42, and Eleanor, 37. The Schuesslers had no other children and lived for these two. They had purchased their home at 5711 Mango av. mainly for the benefit of the boys. Schuessler, who had spent most of his childhood in Germany, operated a tailor shop.

Go with friends

Sunday was movie day for the Schuessler boys. They usually went with two 10 year old neighbors, James Schemitsch of 5709 Mango and Richard Padal of 5705 Mango.

But John and Anton liked bowling too. Their father had taken them several times. On the Friday night before the murders, John had gone to the Faetz & Nielsen alleys, 5961 N. Ridge av. with the Peterson boy and his father. On Saturday day all three victims and young Schemitsch and Padal bowled at the Natoma Lanes, 6512 N. Milwaukee av.

John was a less assertive youngster, not because of his upbringing but apparently as a result of serious injuries in an auto accident. His mother had noticed a personality change after the accident and he seemed dominated by other boys of his age. Anton was the unwanted follower -the older boys had not wished to take him along to the Loop.

But eight graders are like that and Robert and John did not seem different from their classmates. They were doing well in school.

It was true that Robert had had trouble for two weeks early in 1955. He played hookey three times, but then returned to normal. When his parents questioned him, they told police, he said he was in the garage and basement and other places. They asked him if he was with anyone and the elder Peterson said the boy seemed afraid.

Afraid of what? Parental of school discipline or something else? This never has been determined.

Another ominous note

On the Monday before the fatal week-end there was another ominous note. A personality and aptitude test was given in Robert's and John's room. One of the questions was "Do you know anybody who is trying to do you harm or hurt you?" Robert and John were the only ones in the class of 30 who wrote "Yes".

Everybody knows that boys may jest about such things. They seemed to have replied seriously -and gave different answers- to other questions. One was, "Have you often been punished unjustly?". Robert said no and John yes. Another was "Are you afraid in the dark?" If they jested on this one they probably would have written "Yes", but both replies were "No". Perhaps this means nothing, as boyish pride might have prevented them from saying they were afraid.

If honest, the replies point to an earlier threatening experience shared by the two older boys. Nothing of this kind has been found.

Chicken for dinner

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon at both homes. The Petersons had a 1 p.m. dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes and the father went out to clean the garage. The Schuessler boys returned from 11 a.m. mass at St. Tarcissus church, 6020 Ardmore av., and sat down to a chicken noodle soup lunch at 1:30 p.m.

John and Anton loved chicken soup. They were at the table when the phone rang 30 minutes later. John answered and found the caller was his friend, Robert. They talked about going to a movie and Mrs. Schuessler heard the names of two northwest side theaters.

Mother calls theater

Schuesslers were without movie companions. The Schemitsch and Padal boys had gone Sunday driving with their families. So John and Anton donned their jackets. Anton got on his bike and John on Robert's, which had been left at their home the day before, they rode away.

At the Peterson home, John and Anton found that Mrs. Peterson had called the Loop theater where the nature film was playing. She found out the show was 1 hour 45 minutes long. The price would be 50 cents, within the boys' means. Her son had $1.50 and the Schuesslers $2.50 left from bowling the day before.

Agreement was quick and the boys walked eagerly toward the bus stop. For lag along Anton, it was his first Loop trip without a parent.

Some investigation developments have cast doubt on whether the boys actually went to the Loop. George Dillon, caretaker at the Monte Cristo bowling alley, 3326 Montrose av., thought he saw them there about 3:30 p.m., but this was about the time they were leaving the Peterson home.

Joseph Stanton, of 5445 Normandy av., employe of the hobby shop at 4736½ Milwaukee, thought he saw the three boys in the shop about 4:30 p.m. About an hour later three boys appeared in the linoleum and tile shop at 4746 Milwaukee. Stanley Osmanski, manager, later decided they were the Schuessler and Peterson boys. A woman told of them eating steak in a restaurant. Stomach analysis proved this an error.

All these were later identifications of unknown boys with the aid of pictures. This is hard to do. Investigators incline to the belief that the boys were in the Loop theater thrilling to the kills of the huge beasts of prey, or returning at the times of the supposed sightings.

The next report of seeing boys similar to the three is not contradicted by the movie trip. A woman was walking east in the north sidewalk of Montrose, about two doors east of Kenneth av., when she met the boys coming west. The rain had become a bit heavier and she thought the boys' feet were soaked thru their sneakers. This was about 7:10 p.m., and hour after sundown.

The woman said she thought two of the boys were wearing Cuba jackets and the third had a White Sox emblem on his jacket. The boys could have returned fom the Loop by this time.

It was possibly 20 minutes later when Robert, John, and Anton arrived at the only place where they were identified positively between the times they left the Peterson home and when their bodies were found.

This was the Monte Cristo alley, 11 blocks east of the Kenneth intersection in Montrose. If they were the ones seen at Kenneth, they must have been walking west to a stop for a bus which look them in the Monte Cristo.

The boys were there for about half an hour. They did not bowl. Possibly they were just passing time. Among the bowlers were Ernest Niewiadomski, 17, of 5730 N. Major av., and his sisters Leona, 20, and Delphine, 10. They knew the Schuesslers and Ernest talked to them.

Anton, apparently proud of his first unscorted adventure to the Loop, told Ernest of going there, seeing "The African Lion", and travelling there by bus and rapid transit.

"Are you going to bowl?", Ernest asked.

"Not unless you pay for it", one of the boys replied without further explanation.

Bowlers and spectators entered and left the crowded alley. Two other witnesses recalled a gang of tough-appearing young men, led by a black-haired man with long sideburns, seated behind the Niewiadomskis.

A few minutes later Leona noticed Robert and Anton go to the washroom. They were there about five minutes. When they emerged, Robert called, "Let's go, John", in a purposeful way and all left. They seemed somewhat tense and eager to Leona and did not appear to be boys going home at last, their day ended. Leona believes they had a definite aim, something they considered an adventure.

They walked out into the dark at about 8 p.m. Shortly after this time, the chain of inconclusive identifications resumes.

At 8:20 p.m. Harold Blumenfield, 20, of 4527 N. Spoulding av., a truck driver, picked up three boys, one of whom he thought was young Peterson, at Kimball av. while driving west in Montrose. He did not see the other boys, who had been standing in the shadows, and they got in the back seat.

They asked to be let off at Elston av., then told him to drive on to Keeler. Peering out the window, they changed their minds and said to go on "a little bit". At Keneth, one said "O.K. -here". He halted on the northwest corner. It was raining. The boys ran back east across Kenneth.

This would seem to place some mysterious attraction east of the Kenneth-Montrose intersection. Nothing more has been found there, except a woman who reported screams at midnight. "Screams" were heard by many persons at different places that night.

Boys board bus

Shortly before 9 p.m. three boys boarded a Milwaukee av. bus driven by Bruno Mencarini, 44, of 5322 N. Francisco av. He said they got on near Montrose and Milwaukee and they resembled newspaper pictures of Robert, John, and Anton.

The smallest boy did not have his school fare card, but explained to Mancarini, "I'm only 11." The boys were talking about bowling. It was raining moderately hard but they did not seem very wet. The boy who seemed the oldest pointed out the window and said, "There's a bowling alley there." The boys quickly went to the door and got off at the Giddings st. stop.

Mencarini's story aroused interest because Henri's tavern, a place frequented by sexual degenerates, is at Giddings and Milwaukee. Intensive investigation of the area has produced no results. There were a few other reports of boys hitchhiking or getting into cars between 8 and 10 p.m. and then no more.

Parents become restless

At about 8:30 p.m., Anton Schuessler Sr. and Eleanor became restless and worried about their boys. The fear of something nameless grew and they decided to call the Petersons. They tore out a page of Petersons from the telephone book. They found a Malcolm Peterson on Farragut av. and called about 10:30 p.m.

Schuessler asked Peterson to pick him up, as he had no car. They arrived at the station shortly before midnight and found a sympathetic listener in Sgt. George Murphy. The sergeant began calling Loop theaters and alerted the downtown police. He sent message on the missing boys to all the stations.

Fears auto accident

Peterson, no concerned about an auto accident, again tried to reassure Schuessler, who was worrying about something worse. The fathers drove into the Loop and checked theater exits. They left about 2 a.m. and returned to the station where Murphy made more checks and asked police districts to check varoius routes which might be taken by the boys.

At this time Murphy, without telling the father, alerted the sex bureau to the case -a remarkable act this early time in a city in which so many boys and girls are reported missing for a night.

Peterson took Schuessler home at 3:30 a.m. The parents grew more anguished the next day. Peterson was at home with his family. Schuessler went to his tailor shop at 5200 Sheridan rd.

Monday night the Niewiadomskis' mother sent Leona over to tell the Schuesslers they had seen the boys in the Monte Cristo. The fathers began searching the bowling alleys in the area. Attempts at reassurance faded Tuesday morning. Waiting began.

Monday, April 9, 1956.

Chicago Daily Tribune

DISPUTE OVER MEDICAL CLEWS FOGS CASE OF 3 SLAIN BOYS
After six months, mystery still unsolved

[April 16 will mark the end of the sixth month since the mysterious slaying of three Chicago school boys. Tribune reporters John Gavin and Joseph Egelhof have made an exhaustive re-examination of the events that preceded the crime and the unsuccesful efforts of the authorities to solve it. This is the second installment of their report. The final installment will be published tomorrow.]

Two families were corners of a tragic triangle Tuesday morning, Oct. 18. The third point, as yet unknown, was the location of Robert Peterson, 14, and John Schuessler, 13, and his brother, Anton Jr., 11.

It was a cloudy day and the noon temperature was 52, about the same as when Anton and Eleanor Schuessler, of 5711 Mango av., and Malcolm and Dorothy Peterson, of 5519 Farragut av., had said good-by to their sons in mid-afternoon of the preceding Sunday.

But a liquor salesman decided to eat his lunch outdoors in Robinson reserve woods, a forest preserve along the Des Plaines river and due west of the city area where the boys disappeared. He was Victor Livingston, 50, of 2600 Reacher av.

Drives into lot

He turned his car south from Lawrence av. into a blacktop parking lot 100 feet east of the river. He took out a sandwich and glanced at the foot-high grass, drying in autumn. There had been a 30 minute shower the night before.

Directly ahead of him he saw something which he thought was the lower part of an unclothed tailor's dummy. Feet toward him, it was lying in a shallow ditch eight feet from the cast edge of the lot.

He got out and saw it was a body. Then he became ill, returned to his car, and drove away rapidly. He reported his discovery at a nearby tavern. A few minutes later men were looking down into the ditch.

Sprawled on side

The body was Robert's. It was lying stomach down, head jammed against the east side of the ditch. John's body was sprawled on its side to the north, one leg under the Peterson boy. Anton's was on its back on the south, hands folded restfully across the lower part of the chest, and with the legs under Robert's body.

Pictures taken at the scene show the bodies in somewhat varying positions. Almost everyone who looks at them has a theory as to how they got there, but no one knows wether they were thrown or dragged.

However, it is obvious that no attempt was made to conceal the bodies until decomposition. The aim seemed to be to keep them from being noticed from afar while the death vehicle was at the scene. Before the grass was trampled, only part of the body could have been seen from the parking lot.

Avoid leaving tracks

An unpaved drive leads from the north side of Lawrence near the lot entrance. The more exposed lot was selected to avoid leaving tracks.

After a brief examination at the scene and the identification of the boys, the naked bodies, smeared with dirt, were removed. The post-mortem was conducted at 4 p.m. in the County morgue. The findings have been reevaluated so often and so much conjecture has been added that they are confused.

The cause of death was suffocation. Robert had been garroted with a long, flexible object, as the strangulation bruise extended around his neck. There was an unexplained horizontal fingernail mark on the throat. Bruises and a vertical fingernail mark on Anton's neck disclosed hands had strangled him. A peculiar mark on John's neck suggested a judo blow.

Not ruled out

Examinators found no evidence of sexual molestation, but that has not been ruled out by police.

Tiny bits of adhesive gum and skin abrasions on the faces of all three indicated that tape had been applied and removed. The tape was in strips, but there is doubt about what area on the faces was covered. It could have been applied over mouths, noses, and eyes. Possibly the Peterson boy's eyes had not been taped.

Amazingly, examiners could not find any marks indicating the boys' wrists or ankles had been tied. It was decided that rigor mortis had come and gone, indicating the time of death 16 hours or more before.

Subject of controversy

The wounds and bruises on the bodies also have become the subject of controversy in the nearly six months since the examination. One argument is over whether one of the boys had a broken nose and another a broken jaw. The coroner's pathologist at that time said there were no such fractures. Another dispute over an apparently weird wound in one of the legs was settled with disclosure the physician had found a rodent bite and removed sections of adjoining tissue to study it.

Fourteen small wounds were found on the left side of Robert's head. There seemed to be four parallel patterns, one of four gouges, which might indicate a four pronged instrument had been swung at him four times, with not all the prongs striking each time.

Single heavy blows, apparently with fists, had caused large bruises near the right eye of John and the left eye of Anton, and behind the left ears of both. Anton's right side had another bruise.

Anton's knuckles torn

Three of the knuckles on one of Anton's hands and one on the other were torn, as if he swung at a person and struck some intervening object.

Black smears on the soles of their feet indicated they had been walking in their bare feet. Dirt and blood smears suggested they were naked before they were slain.

One medical expert has suggested that the blows, the tape applied in near suffocating manner, and the later strangling indicate an irrational overdoing of murder typical of maniacal fury -the brutal passion of a man subject to sadistic rages but normal at other times.

Recent development

However, a more recent development is an opinion, accepted by police, that the tape may have been removed before the boys were slain -either before or very shortly after.

The time of death also has been debated. The examiners found several ounces of partly digested food in the stomachs of the Schuesslers but nothing in young Peterson's. The food is similar to the chicken soup which John and Anton had at home between 1:30 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16. Altho they were alive six hours later, beyond the time food normally would be retained in the stomarch, it now is accepted that the food was from the meal at home.

This tends to place the time of the Schuessler's death at shortly after they disappeared Sunday night. Robert probably was killed sometime later.

Folding of hands

The medical findings can be made to point to almost any kind of killer -or killers. Anton's folded hands were interpreted by some authorities as an expression of remorse by the killer. The position does seem unnatural. However, it has been pointed out that some other person, who came on the bodies and lifted an arm to seen if they were dead, might have placed both arms in the position of rest.

Most arrests have been founded in the belief that sexual degenerates killed the boys, perhaps one or two of them by accident. Teen-age gangs have received much attention. Investigators can only guess how the victims were disrobed and controled without being bound.

The bruises on the faces and heads of the Schuessler boys suggest that a powerful man, much taller than they, struck each first on the face. then as the boy sagged, he grabbed and turned him, striking again in the back of the head to propel his victim thru a door. The Peterson boy's head wounds suggest a weaker, frantic flailing of a weapon by a shorther assailant. Police marvel that two killers, or more, could have held such a secret so long.

All theories present

Almost anything can be read into such speculation -a pair sex degenerates or a gang of young toughs or even a man and a woman.

All the theories were there from the start and little has been uncovered to support any of them.

Robert's father was weeping as he left the morgue where he identified the son's body and cried, "O Robert, what have they done to you?" The bodies of John and Anton were viewed by their father, who had to be helped to a car, saying, "If you have any kids, you know how I feel." The world was shocked and a free-for-all man-hunt was on.

Less than a month later the senior Schuessler died of a heart attack.

Tuesday, April 10, 1956.

Chicago Daily Tribune

TRIPLE KILLING PROBE OPENS WITH 3 AIMS
Investigation develops into dogged checking

[With nearly sixth months elapsed  since the mysterious slaying of three Chicago school boys, Tribune reporters John Gavin and Joseph Egelhof made a complete re-examination of all known facts about the crime. Today's article concludes their three part report.]

The "triple murder" investigation got under way with three principal aims: to seek the killer in the area where the boys disappeared, and to locate the death scene.

Coroner McCarron's aids and Sheriff Lohman's deputies vied with city and state police and forest rangers in the first search for suspects and clews. There was immense public support but also considerable fear of being questioned by police or harmed by the murderers. Some persons still are withholding valuable information.

After a four day free-for-all, Police Commissioner O'Connor set up a special 50 man unit to handle the case with the aid of the other agencies. It was headed by Lt. Patrick Deeley and turned over to Sgt. Michael Spiotto, now a lieutenant, when Deeley was promoted to chief of detectives.

Disappear Oct. 16

Robert Peterson, 14, and John Schuessler, 13, and his brother, Anton Jr., 11, disappeared Sunday night, Oct. 16, in the Irving Park police district. Their bodies were found Tuesday noon in Robinson reserve woods, at Lawrence av. and the Des Plaines river in Leyden township.

Despite the question of jurisdiction, Chicago police operated freely in the county area and carried the main load from the first day.

Capt. Russell Corcoran arrived to take command of the Irving Park district at 1 p.m. Tuesday and was met by a reporter who told him he had "one of the roughest crimes in the history of Chicago" on his hands. Capt. Herbert Burns of the adjoining Albany Park district also was in the investigation from the beginning. So was Lt. James McMahon, head of the homicide division.

Start immediately

John T. O'Malley, then chief of detectives, ordered the investigation started immediately. Lt. John Archer's crime laboratory technicians were sent to the Robinson woods parking lot. Gov. Stratton was represented by his top investigator, Lt. Edward Stanwyck. Walter Fleming leads a major crime unit of the sheriff's police in the case.

The Peterson boy's father Malcolm, 40, and Anton Schuessler Sr., 42, went out to look for the killer. Services were held for John and Anton Jr. in St. Tarcissus church, 8020 Ardmore av. and for Robert in the Jefferson Park Lutheran church, Northwest hwy., and Long av.

As suspects paraded thru lie tests and the lack of real clews became evident, veteran investigators realized that they had one of history's roughest crimes. The investigation developed a pattern of dogged checking and probing, led by five sergeants, Thomas Mulvey, John Cartan, Otto Kreuzer, John Hartigan, and John Konen.

Father of two dies

Anton Schuessler Sr., ill before his only sons were slain, died Nov. 11 in the Forest sanitarium and rest home in Des Plaines. He apparently suffered a heart attack while undergoing an electric shock treatment for depression.

With his death, his wife, Eleanor, 37, who said "Everything there was to live for is gone", became a symbol of the tragedy.

The first leg of the investigative triangle, the search of the area where the boys disappeared and where they presumebly met the killer, has brought a dreary sucession of degenerates of every type before the public. Spiotto estimates that his men have taken at least 100 degenerates off the streets. One admitted crimes with 100 other persons.

Get reports of cars

At the second leg, the parking lot in the forest preserve, police obtained reports of three cars parked outside the lot and three and possibly five inside between 7:15 and 8:30 a.m. the day the bodies were found. The reports were from persons driving in Lawrence av.

Bror V. Malberg, of 5726 N. Odell av., an engineering firm president, said three vehicles were parked together at 7:15 a.m. in the east side of the lot, near where the bodies were found in a shallow ditch. The car in the middle was a light colored station wagon with wood trim. Two men were standing behind it.

This has raised a fantastic pair of alternatives. One was that the bodies were dumped in broad daylight. The other is that some persons saw the bodies and fled without notifying anyone. None of the persons in the cars has come forward to tell his story. It is possible but seems not likely that the topmost body was not seen in the ditch by persons in cars parked where Malmberg said he saw them. Others driving in the lot probably would not have seen the bodies.

Another strange event

Another strange event had to be fitted into the parking lot puzzle. This was the story of Edward Rolfes, 47, that he and his deaf-mute brother, Herman, had slept in their truck in a connected lot 300 feet from where the bodies were found and had been there all of the night before the discovery.

Edward, whose story was supported by lie tests, told of driving back about 10:30 a.m. with his daughter to show where he had slept. Neither saw the bodies. But they saw three hatless young men in a weathered blue Ford enter as they drove out. Recently Herman gestured a story, as yet neither proved or disproved, of having seen a fight and a body.

Working along the third side of the investigation triangle toward the death scene, police at first had no more than the reports of screams had in many places that night, as they are every night.

Reports get attention

Some reports jibed with other unusual events and some have been investigated extensively. One receiving attention now is that of a woman living in a corner building a short distance east of the Montrose Kenneth avs. intersection. There have been two reports of sighting the boys at the intersection shortly before they disappeared.

At midnight this woman's husband went across the street to buy a bottle of beer. A few minutes later she heard a screech of brakes, and fearing he had been struck by a car, looked out. She saw a westbound car halted and heard a person, she thinks a boy, screaming while a man in the front seat turned and struck repeatedly at someone in the back seat. The screams halted and the man drome off and turned north at the next corner.

The death scene search was aided by the volunteer work of scientists at two great research laboratories, Standard Oil Company of Indiana at Whiting and Armour Research Foundation of the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Scrapings are analysed

Fingernail scrapings of young Peterson [the nails of Anton and John had been bitten to short to accumulate material] were analysed in the Standard lab. In the scrapings the scientists found and identified several tiny fragments of an unusual nonmagnetic stainless steel.

Armour Research locked into a flake of material from Robert's right foot. Altho weighing only a millionth of an ounce, the speck was found to be a substance similar to casein glue and containing bits of lime, dolomite, sand, and other materials.

With these aids, police began an enormous survey of metal working places. The have visited 2,000 shops in a large area of the northwest side and the adjoining county area.

Yields possible clew

A third scientific aid gave police a possible clew to the make of car sought. A series of parallel marks on John Schuessler's back could have come from the trunk mat of a 1942 to 1951 Packard. Police compiled a check list of 12,000 owners of such cars.

Spiotto estimates that approximately 1,120 suspects have been questioned or investigated. Of these, 319 were sex deviates.

Nearly 30,000 persons have been interviewed.

About 7,000 homes, vacant structures or business have been visited and searched. At least 16 square miles, including the entire Irving Park district, was covered in the house to house interviews.

Instead of waning, the investigation has become much more active in the last two months. Police veterans do not see the pattern of the typical unsolved child killing in this case. They believe the killer -or killers- will be caught, in spite of his care and luck.