Going West: True Crime - Helen Brach // 109

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

In 1977, a famous candy company heiress in Chicago mysteriously disappeared after a seemingly normal day visiting a clinic in a neighboring state. In this complex who-dun-it, you’ll question the butler, friends and family, and everyone she did dealings with to try and figure who wanted her dead; but it seems EVERYONE had a motive. From possible impersonators, to suspicious remodeling, and multiple confessions, this case has it all. This is the story of Helen Brach. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast ( https://app.redcircle.com/patreon.com/goingwestpodcast ) CASE SOURCES https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-03-02-8701170062-story.html https://charleyproject.org/case/helen-marie-voorhees-brach https://orangebeanindiana.com/2020/03/31/the-empty-grave-of-candy-queen-helen-brach/ https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brach-43 https://rpwrhs.org/w/index.php?title=Frank_Vincent_Brach https://abc7chicago.com/man-sentenced-in-1977-disappearance-of-chicago-candy-heiress-released-from-prison/5420957/ https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1987-03-12-8701160041-story.html https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/84651469/emil-julius-brach https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1990-12-02-9002280469-story.html https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/97067408/charles-milton-vorhees Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Tee. And I'm your other host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. We got a ton of awesome feedback on last week's bonus episode and we even released the first 16 minutes or so in the form of a going west episode so you guys can kind of get a little taste of what our bonus episodes are like. And that case, the Philab island mystery, is absolutely nuts. Like there were so many times during recording where I got the chills and I felt scared

in my seat telling the story and hearing heaths tell the story. Like, it's freaky and filled with cover-ups and lies and confusion and it all takes place on a beautiful island in Australia. So check it out. Yeah, I agree. It is honestly probably one of the craziest episodes. We've, or craziest cases we've ever covered.

I, I completely agree. And for all of our new patrons who joined in the last week after hearing that clip, we thank you so so much and we give each and every one of you a shout out in the end of this episode, so don't forget to listen for your name. And for today's case, not only is it a very strange case, but it's a really interesting story as far as the victim's life goes and the achievements of her husband and husband's family, and I always love cases like this one because the details are wild.

Like, I am surprised this is not a movie, so hope you guys enjoy. Alright guys, this is episode 109 of Going West, so let's get into it. In 1977, a famous candy company, Aris, in Chicago mysteriously disappeared after a seemingly normal day visiting a clinic in a neighboring state. In this complex who done it, you'll question the butler, friends and family, and everyone she did dealings with to try and figure out who wanted her dead, but it seems everyone had a motive. From possible impersonators to suspicious remodelings and multiple confessions, this case has it all. This is the story of Helen Brock. Helen Voorhees was born on November 10, 1911, which is the furthest back in time we've gone on this show, although this story really takes place in the 1970s, and was raised in Union Port, Ohio to parents Daisy and Walter Voorhees, and she had a younger brother named Charles.

Union Port is a small, unincorporated farming town in eastern Ohio, and interestingly enough, when I looked this little town up, it says it is best known for being the birthplace and hometown of Helen, which I thought was pretty, pretty wild. That's like what it's known for. So she's the most famous person in her town. Right, which she wasn't when she was growing up there, but we'll get to that. So not too much going on in Union Port, and the closest city is actually Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is about an hour's drive east. Helen had a very modest upbringing, and during her years in high school,

she dated a man who she ended up marrying at 17 years old and she became Helen Littlecock. But just a few years later, when she was 21 in the early 1930s, they divorced, because apparently he was a womanizer. So she broke off the marriage and started a new life for herself. But to help support herself for the time being, before she could kind of set off for a new adventure, she had to work in a pottery factory to get by. Years after Helen's divorce, she went on a trip to Miami Beach, Florida, and discovered a job opening as a hat-check girl at the Indian Creek Country Club in Indian Creek, Florida, which is right next to Miami Beach. And Indian Creek is actually on its own little private island and so is its country club

And this island is chock full of very expensive houses and we actually checked Zillow to see if any of these houses were for sale out of Curiosity and the only one that's for sale is $25 million so that kind of gives you a better idea of what kind of people live on this island It's known as one of the wealthiest, private, most secure communities in Miami Beach and the world, and only about 42 people live on this island. So anyway, back to Helen. So she thought that the job would be exciting, and like Daphne said, since she had a very modest upbringing, Helen was excited to meet some well-to-do people and kind of reinvent herself.

This was in 1950, so she was about 38 years old at this time, and still a beautiful red-headed woman with big dreams. After moving to Miami Beach and starting her job at the Indian Creek Country Club, Helen Metaman named Frank Brock. Frank was known as the Candy King and for good reason. He was the son of Emil Brock, who was born in Germany and migrated with his family to Iowa in 1866. After attending Business College, managing a confectionery store and then landing a major job at a candy-making company, Emil Brock started his very own candy store and factory in 1904,

called Brock's Confections. And about 14 years before this happened in 1890, Emil and his wife, Catherine Cunningham Brock, had their second child, Frank Brock. Catherine died at the age of 64 in 1924 and a meal died 23 years later in 1947, so about three years before Helen Voorhees met Frank Brock. So by the time they met, Frank had become the heir to Brock's candy company. And he was technically one of the founders of the company as well, because he and his brother Edwin helped his dad kinda make the candy in the early days of the company when they were teenagers.

So this was like a family, family business. And the story of the company is actually really, really interesting but I'll keep it short and just tell you that Amel invested his life savings of $1,000, which today would be equal to over $25,000 to start the company. And maybe most notably, Brock's is the company that makes the conversation hearts around Valentine's Day, you know, the ones, the chocky ones that we still love as kids. And they're also the number one selling candy corn product in the United States, and then

make a ton of other little candies that you've probably had at some point in your life. So a very big company, meaning Frank Brock, was a very, very wealthy man in 1950. Yeah, I was actually just looking up like the different candies that Brock's makes. And yeah, most notably was the candy corn. So if you guys have had candy corn before, you probably had Brock's. But not just for his money, he and Helen hit it off really well, and they truly fell in love. Frank was living in Chicago at the time and was in charge of the Brox candy company branch there. Frank was 22 years older than Helen and was married to his second wife, June. His first wife was Eunice, who he married in 1915 when he was

25 years old, and they almost immediately had a son, Frank Brock Jr. and then a few years later in 1924 they had a daughter named Joyce. But this marriage ended in divorce, per Eunice, claiming cruelty in the marriage. But we don't have details on this and it doesn't relate to the story, but those are just the facts. And due to this, Eun it doesn't relate to the story, but those are just the facts. And due to this, Eunice gained custody of both of their children. But weirdly enough, this divorce happened the very same year that Helen divorced her

first husband as well. After this, Frank went on to marry his second wife, June. But when he met Helen in 1950, and they began having an affair, June found out, and she filed, an alienation of affection suit which is usually done by a spouse involved in adulterous marriage, and this alleged that Frank's affair was the reason for the damage in the relationship which resulted in the divorce. So after the divorce finalized, Helen Voorhees became Helen Brock and she was also dubbed

as the Candy Lady or the candy queen. Forty-year-old Helen and 62-year-old Frank then began a very exciting life together that involved lots of luxury purchases and exotic vacations around the globe. And they were extremely happy together. They bought a house in Glenview, Illinois, which is a beautiful village just outside of Chicago. And shortly afterwards, since they both loved Florida, they built a second home on Fisher Island, which is yet another exclusive and safe private island of Florida, to escape from

the winter cold in Illinois. And really the main reason they even had a house in Chicago was because of the Brock's office and factory that was house in Chicago was because of the Brock's office and factory that was located in Chicago, but they definitely spent the majority of the time in their Florida home. Because by this time, 60-something-year-old Frank wasn't handling much of the business side of things, and he really didn't want to, so they had a lot of time to enjoy themselves. And he loved to shower Helen and in gifts, especially nice cars.

He bought a lavender rolls-roise convertible, a white and pink linking continental, and then a coral Cadillac sedan, so lots of very cute colored, nice cars. But the story really isn't about Frank or their marriage together because, despite where you may think this is going, Frank didn't murder Helen and Helen didn't murder Frank. Like I said, they had a very happy life together. But nearly 20 years into their marriage, Frank Brock died just three weeks after his 80th birthday on January 29th, 1970, at the St. Anne's Hospital in Chicago. It's actually kind of weird because five months before he died,

his first born child Frank Jr died, and I don't know how he died, but I thought it was kind of weird that they died so close together, because Frank Jr was only 55 when he passed away, so that's not that was kind of odd. So by this time, the Brock Candy Company had been sold, so 50-year-old Helen didn't have to manage or sort anything regarding the business once her husband Frank passed away. She did receive a hefty share of Frank's fortune that would be worth $160 million today. But she did a lot of humble things with this money, like set up an animal rights foundation called the Helen V. Brock Foundation since she absolutely loved animals, and she gave the majority of her fortune

to help stray animals. I think that's so cool, because a lot of people and they have that much money, it's like, you know, no person needs that much. So the fact that she took the majority of her fortune to help animals was really cool. Yeah, and I mean, her houses were probably already paid off at this point, and, you know, she probably just didn't need $160 million. And a little fun fact, they had two

dogs named Sugar and Candy, which is just so cute and fitting, so after Frank's death, these dogs were really all she had. She didn't have many friends at all since Frank was her entire life before he passed. So life after Frank's death seemed very sad and lonely for her. Not to mention that their house in Glenview, Illinois was an 18 bedroom mansion on a 7-acre estate, so she had this massive home all to herself essentially. They did have a 39-year-old butler named Jack Matlick, who had been working for them for over 10 years and making $1,000 a month, which would be named Jack Matlick, who had been working for them for over 10 years and making $1,000 a month, which would be equivalent to nearly $7,000 today.

And a few other people worked in the home, but still. Jack didn't live their full time and he actually had a wife and life of his own, along with five children and a farm that the brox owned in Schomburg, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago, that he went back to outside of his working hours, so he would work for the Bronx and then he would go home. Over the next few years, Helen spent her time setting up the foundation that Heath just discussed, and also getting into the horse business.

She didn't date anyone for years because she was genuinely distraught after Frank's passing. And someone who helped her get into the horse business was a 43-year-old man named Richard Bailey. The tube met at a restaurant in Morton Grove, Illinois, which is right next to her town of Glenview, in 1973, so three years after Frank passed away. Richard was a jiggle-o, also known as a younger man, you know, with a sugar momma, or he's a male escort, and he owned an equestrian center and club called Bailey Stables and Country Club outside of Chicago, where you gonna say something. Oh, I was just gonna say if anybody remembers that that movie, Doos Bigelow, Male Jiggle-. Uh, yeah, pretty much that. Get's the idea.

But Richard Bailey was also known as a con man, and he tricked older women into buying horses for much more than they were worth, which is how he was able to obtain this equestrian center. Because he was a younger, very charismatic man, which was all a game, and he just swindled older women into giving him lots of money. And this is what he did to Helen.

He wanted to sell her horses, and he made her believe that they were horses in their prime, and great for racing, which just was not true. But she spent a lot of money on them, and they kept a friendship going. And to kind of give you an idea, she spent almost $100,000 on horses. So he turned a profit of nearly $80,000 on them just from her. Because the horses only cost him like $17,000 or something in that ballpark. So this guy was really conning people. Right. So he was just selling her like just horses that were old and just not in great racing condition, right? Exactly. Not very quote unquote, trainable.

And it was just kind of his charm. That's how he got away with it. Three days after Valentine's Day, on Thursday, February 17, 1977, Helen Brock headed to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. And for those of you who don't know or are in different countries, the Mayo Clinic has

five locations in the United States, and it's a non-profit American Academic Medical Center. And their headquarters are in Rochester, Minnesota, and that location is closest to where Helen lived. So she would usually go there for routine checkups. While visiting on this day, the doctor said that she was perfectly healthy except that she was slightly overweight, so he just recommended that she work on that, so no health issues would arise in the future. But that was all. She was 5,10 and 200 pounds, so this request wasn't too serious. Since she didn't live in the area, Helen was staying

at a hotel in the area, and before heading back there after her appointment, she stopped at a gift shop at the Mayo Clinic and bought some bath towels and cosmetics, totaling about $41. While she was checking out in her full length for a coat, she explained to the employee who was ringing her up that she was in a hurry because her houseman was waiting for her. Before that break, we discussed how Helen was purchasing items at a gift shop and said she was in a hurry and that her houseman was waiting for her. The strange thing about this was that she was supposedly traveling alone, and this was confirmed by everyone who crossed paths with her during her short time in Rochester. And maybe this would make sense if she was home in the Chicago area because we know she

did have a houseman, also known as her butler, Jack Matlick. But she wasn't seen with Jack in Rochester, so why did she mention this? And I'm just thinking like if this were just an excuse to get the checkered a hurry, it just seems like a very specific thing to say. You know, why not just say I'm in a hurry? To me, the fact that she specifically said that her houseman was waiting, it just makes me feel like Jack was there with her. Yeah, and honestly, that kind of seems like a pompous thing to say, like, you're saying that to a checker,

I know, who's making like minimum wage. Well, I was thinking the same thing. That's why I'm like, why would she say these words unless she was just really meaning it? Like, oh, I have someone waiting for me. I get the idea, it's just oddly specific. Yeah, and you're probably wondering why we're pondering this, but you'll understand soon

Two whole weeks later her butler Jack Matlich whose formal name was John A Matlich informed the police of Helen's absence He hadn't seen her heard from her for a couple of weeks Which was extremely out of the ordinary? But the police told him that if she was missing, that would need to be reported by a family member. And by this point both of Helen's parents had passed, so the only immediate family member that she had was her younger brother Charles Voorhees. At this time he was 59 years old and he had five children with his wife Eileen and they were living in Hopedale, Ohio.

But of course, hearing that his sister was missing, Charles got on a flight to Chicago as soon as he could, which was a few days later. After his arrival, he visited her mansion outside of Chicago and looked for any evidence of her whereabouts, but found nothing. So with that, he reported her missing to the local police himself. After doing so, he returned to Helen's house where he and Jack, the butler, continued

to look for clues. That's when Jack burned all of Helen's diaries. Helen wrote in a diary every day, and she had been doing so for many years. According to her brother Charles, she had left very specific instructions that if anything were to happen to her, that her diaries be destroyed. But Charles didn't burn them himself, and Jack was the one to do this all by his loansome, so he was alone when he burned these. So Charles didn't see what was inside the diaries or have any information on why she apparently wanted them to be destroyed, but it was done.

Once the police began looking into Helen's disappearance, which wasn't until a few weeks after the fact, they interviewed Jack Matlich. He explained that on the day Helen had an appointment at the Mayo Clinic, she had a flight back to Chicago scheduled, and he picked her up at the O'Hare Airport in Chicago and took her home. He then explained that she had a meeting with a man he had never seen, then he saw Helen after the meeting, and then he didn't see her for the rest of the weekend. So this is according to Jack. Yes, Jack is saying, I picked her up from the airport, she did leave Minnesota, I took her home, she had a meeting, then I didn't see her that weekend. Right.

According to Jack Matlich, Helen had a flight to Florida on Monday, February 21, 1977. So four days after her supposed return from Minnesota, at 9 a.m. to arrange the purchase of a new condo there, and Jack said that he took her back to the O'Hare airport and dropped her off for her flight at 6.50 a.m. The weird thing is, no one else was aware that Helen was going to Florida. As we mentioned before, she didn't have a ton of close friends, but she still did have a few of them, most just lived in Ohio or in Florida. There were a couple of friends in particular who she spoke with multiple times a week,

and they both stated that she hadn't mentioned anything about going to Florida that following week at all. Even stranger, between the days of Helen's supposed return to Chicago on Thursday and her supposed flight to Florida on Monday, none of her friends spoke with her. In fact, all the calls that came into her Chicago home that weekend were answered by Jack Matlich. And each time he told them that she wasn't feeling up for talking and would call them back later, which she never did. So the friends are saying I talked to Jack and he said that she wasn't up for talking, meanwhile Jack is saying he didn't see Helen that weekend, so that doesn't fit.

Another thing about this Florida flight is that Helen was not an early riser. She would have never gotten up so early to get ready and leave to arrive at the airport at 6.50am. And she could afford to fly whatever day and time she wanted, and she never would have chosen such an early flight. And the airport is only about 20 to 25 minutes from her house, so she was close enough to catch any flight. When police check the flights at the Chicago-Ohair airport for the day of the supposed Florida flight, they discovered that there wasn't even a flight that departed at or around 9 a.m. to Florida

that day. One of Helen's very close friends named Douglas Stevens, who lived in Fort Lauderdale, always picked her up from the airport when she landed in Florida, as requested by her. But he wasn't even aware that she was coming to the state that week at all. So no one in her life knew of this flight or trip. She wasn't heard from all weekend. She despised waking up early for anything let alone a flight. And most importantly, the flight didn't exist.

When police discovered her last credit card purchase was at the gift shop in Minnesota, they questioned the clerk and discovered that Helen had apparently made the comment about her being in a hurry and that her houseman was waiting for her. Police also questioned the airplane staff for her flight, but they didn't remember her being on this flight. Since this was weeks later, and in 1977, this couldn't be confirmed for sure, but the

flight attendants felt confident that she wasn't on the plane that day. At this point, there's absolutely no evidence that Helen Brock left Minnesota on Thursday, February 17, 1977, so all of these statements regarding Jack Matlich seemed very odd to police. And when they discovered that he had burned her diary, they were even more suspicious of him. And to really just make things worse for him, Jack was supposedly set to inherit about $50,000 from Helen's will, and around the time of Helen's

disappearance, Jack deposited multiple checks from Helen for $15,000 each. When reviewing the checks and comparing them to Helen's handwriting, it was determined that the signature and handwriting on those checks were not her handwriting. Which would then obviously indicate that he was writing himself checks after Helen disappeared. Yep. But this would have been done before he reported her missing, so then that makes him look even more suspicious. And by the way regarding Helen's will, no one could actually find her will at this time when she originally disappeared, so any money going to Jack couldn't be confirmed.

While police explained all of this to Jack about the handwriting, etc., he said that Helen had signed the checks with her non-dominant hand because she had injured her other hand. He later changed his story and said that because of her supposed injured hand, he wrote the checks himself, but with her permission. But remember, she went to the Mayo Clinic before she disappeared, and the doctor didn't report Helen having any hand injury whatsoever. So this injury could have happened, you know, after the visit, but just very suspicious. It's also pretty unlikely.

Yes, it really is. As we mentioned earlier, Jack was married, so police wanted to question his wife Janice to see if there were any discrepancies between their stories. And there was. According to Janice, Jack wasn't home that weekend because he told her he had to stay in Glenview and work at Helens, which was not typical. Even though Jack had said that he wasn't at Helens Glenview home much of the time at all and he didn't see her, so that doesn't add up.

Also, Janice stated that Jack told her that Helen never returned from her flight from Minnesota after going to the Mayo Clinic, and that a couple days later on the weekend, because remember she was last seen on a Thursday afternoon, Jack had the carpets in Helen's home replaced, in one of the bedrooms, as well as having two of the rooms repainted. Jack also had Helen's coral colored Cadillac cleaned, shampooed, and waxed that weekend as well. And he had apparently been driving it, so this really just makes you wonder. I could understand cleaning the Cadillac

and getting it shampooed and all that kind of stuff, because that seems like something a houseman would do. Totally. But replacing the carpet and painting the walls when Helen's not even home, why? Yeah, and again, it's like, sure, at some point in time, you might need to change your carpet. You might need to paint your walls,

but it's just the timing is too weird. Yeah, the timing is really just too odd. I mean, it is definitely possible that she had told him before she left for a trip. Hey, I need you to replace his carpet and paint these walls, but it's like, I don't buy that. So obviously all of this just sounds so weird. Of course, the police followed up with the workers to see if they noticed anything odd with the walls or carpeting, but the men stated that nothing appeared to be out of sorts.

While questioning Jack Matt like again, they asked him to do a polygraph test, which he did. And the results came back as inconclusive, so in other words, he failed. And of course these questions were along the lines of, do you know what happened to Helen? Do you know where Helen is? Questions about Helen. And the results were inconclusive, which, you know, we talk about polygraph tests all the time, who knows how accurate they really are, but it is weird.

Yeah, exactly. And so, he later took another one and the results were exactly the same, so again, inconclusive. Since Helen was still nowhere to be found, please had to continue on questioning other people and trying to put this whole story together. Enter, Richard Bailey. Remember how he sold all those horses to Helen in the mid-1970s? This wasn't the end of Richard conning women, or Helen for that matter. In fact, he and Helen's friendship apparently turned more into a relationship and carried

on for about the next couple years. On December 31, 1976, so two months before Helen's disappearance, they went away together to New York City for some New Year's Eve festivities and stayed at the Waldorf Astoria, which is a luxury hotel for those of you who don't know, and they had a wonderful evening ringing in 1977. But after this night, things began to go south. Richard Bailey tried to sell Helen more horses, and the price tag was $150,000. She didn't end up going with it because an appraiser warned her not to even train the horses that she already had purchased, because they were not worth what Richard Bailey had told her they were. So it appeared that Helen was catching up on his scam.

And this was pretty much confirmed after viewing the second set of horses, because multiple people overheard her angrily expressing that she had been cheated and that she would be going to the DA's office about it. Later, she told one of her friends that she was upset about some horses that she had purchased from a younger man that she was dating. And during this conversation, her friend mentioned that she knew some prosecutors who could help her, to which Helen responded that she was heading to Minnesota for a visit to the Mayo Clinic and that she would visit the State's Attorney's Office when she returned. So as far as motives go, it seems multiple people have motives here. Jack Matlet could have killed her to get the money from her estate, as well as write

those checks to himself, and Richard Bailey could have gotten rid of her to stop her from possibly prosecuting regarding his enormous scam. And the whole scam is a lot worse than just selling a few old horses in the promise of a trainable race horse. Things got much worse. Richard was a part of what is now referred to as the horse murders, which is known to be the biggest scandal in the history of a question in sports, as well as one of the biggest, most gruesome stories in sports.

In total, 36 people were indicted for insurance fraud and animal cruelty amongst many other crimes for selling overvalued horses, as well as murdering horses to collect insurance money. Richard Bailey took part in many of these crimes and was even known to kill horses for money. The reason he and many others did this was to get money quickly. They would ensure these horses and then kill them in order to collect the policy money, and sometimes they would kill the horses they sold just after selling them to someone so that they could keep the money from the horse purchase, but also in order to stop

the purchaser from realizing that the horse was no good. And this is so messed up and so sad, but I just want to mention it for those who are wondering how the horses were killed. And Richard Bailey's personal preferred methods were electrocution, leg breaking, and arson, and arson would be by burning down the stables, and this was his favorite because not only could he collect insurance from multiple horses, but also collect the building insurance. So this was just such a disgusting scam. So this guy is basically just a huge piece of shit in every way.

He murders innocent horses and rips off wealthy older women and possibly even murders people. Yeah, he's just the worst. So before the police and FBI caught on to all these crimes relating to the horses, police started looking into Richard Bailey for Helen's disappearance. But as soon as Richard heard about all this, he hired an attorney and refused to speak to police or anyone else asking about what happened to Helen. A man named John Mank was an attorney who was appointed to be in charge of Helen's estate, and he began to do some investigating of his own.

He noticed that everyone surrounding this case acted very peculiarly. From Jack the Houseman to her accountant, to Richard Bailey, and even her brother Charles Voorhees. Months went by and still, there was absolutely no sign of Helen Brock. Even one year later in 1978, police hadn't come up with any solid clues as to what could have happened to her. There were plenty of suspicious people which almost made solving this case harder because there were so many people that had a motive. But in 1978, so again a year later, John Mank discovered something, a suitcase. He was going around Helen's house for what seemed like the millionth time.

When he came across a suitcase with luggage tags, for the Minneapolis to Chicago flight, that Helen was supposed to take after her Mayo clinic appointment on the day she disappeared. They had been looking for this suitcase for a whole year because it would help determine if she did in fact take that flight. And now there it was, sitting in plain sight. And this was really strange because police had searched her house multiple times and not once was it discovered. So of course, this indicated that someone had recently put it there.

And this made police question Jack's original statement regarding Helen's flight. Did he plant the suitcase in her house one year later to back up his story that he did pick her up from the airport? Why wouldn't he have just put it there a year earlier? Putting the suitcase in the house a year later looks so much more suspicious, as if she never even entered her home to unpack and throw away the tag, so this discovery only raised more questions and didn't bring more answers. Jack Mattlet kept asserting his innocence, but he remained a suspect in this case.

Although Helen's brother Charles told police that he didn't think Jack had anything to do with it, and that he was almost like family. In 1978, another strange discovery was made, but this time it was a spray-painted message on a sidewalk near Helen's home in Glenview, Illinois. The message read, Richard Bailey knows where Mrs. Brock's body is, stop him with exclamation points. So, police attempted to question him again, but they didn't have enough evidence that he was involved because they still didn't have a body.

This is so weird. Like who spray painted this, and how do they know, or why do they think that he was involved? Like for this to be spray painted on the side, like that's so, that's crazy. Yeah, that's a very, very crazy thing to happen because it's not like, the public probably didn't have a lot of details in this case. They probably knew that Helen Brock was missing, but for that to be spray painted on the sidewalk, that just goes to show you that I feel like somebody is trying to hint to police that they know what happened.

Years later, in 1984, Helen Brock was legally declared dead and her estate went to her brother Charles Voorheeses as well as different animal welfare organizations. As far as the houseman Jack goes, it doesn't seem that he received any more money from Helen's fortune and he was fired by her accountant. And he was fired, you know, not too long after Helen disappeared anyway because obviously there was really no use for him if something had happened to her. Exactly. Three years after being declared legally dead in 1987, a man in Mississippi told police

an interesting story. Maurice Ferguson was serving time in a Mississippi prison for armed robbery at this time, but told investigators that he was involved in disposing of Helen Brock's body. He said that 10 years earlier in 1977, a man named Silas Jane, who was found to have committed insurance fraud and horse murders just like Richard Bailey. And who looks like an absolute gangster. And he was, he was such a con man gangster mobster guy. So Silas Jane supposedly hired this man, Maurice Ferguson, to move Helen's remains from Morton Grove, which is the town where Richard Bailey lived in,

to Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is where, you know, she was supposed to fly out of. Right. And those not super familiar with US Geography, if you drive Northwest from Chicago, it's about a six and a half hour drive to Minneapolis, so not super far you could do it in a day. And since Maurice was later living a few states away in Mississippi, we can't be sure how they knew each other, but he may have been living in Minnesota at the time, which again is only one state away from Illinois.

At the time of Helen's disappearance, Silas Jane was in prison, but it's believed that he partnered up with Richard Bailey to get rid of Helen Brock to ensure that both of their horse scams wouldn't be exposed. Obviously, this was a potentially very good lead, so police let Marie's Ferguson have a 72-hour pass from prison and flew him up to Minnesota to show them where he buried Helen's body. After hours of searching, Maurice wasn't able to direct them to any remains at all, and this is either because he was lying or because 10 years had passed and he really couldn't

remember where he had put her body. Whether Richard Bailey and Silas Jane were involved in Helen's disappearance or not, they got what was coming to them, because two years later in 1989, police and the FBI began to catch onto their crimes in the horse murders and all the fraud that they had both committed, and this opened up a whole other can of worms. This is when police started thinking that Silas Jane was connected to at least three disappearances in the 1960s. And Miller, Renee Bruehl, and Patricia Blau, who were all between 19 and 21 years of age. They all rode horses at Silas' stables and disappeared on the very same day, and it's heavily believed that both Richard Bailey and Silas Jane were a part of their disappearances and likely their murders. And there's so much more to that case

we're actually going to cover it as a full-length ad-free Patreon bonus episode next week. So if you want to hear all the crazy details and get dozens more bonus episodes head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast to subscribe and the case of these three disappearances is called the Indiana Dunes mystery and we'll release that at the $5 tier which of course will also be able to be listened to by the $10 tier patron so you don't want to miss it. In 1994 Richard Bailey was charged with fraud and numerous counts of it, along with soliciting to commit murder and causing the murder of Helen Brock.

Since Helen's body wasn't found, all they could really go off of for the murder-related charges were circumstantial. So he really did not believe that these charges were going to stick. But he did plead guilty to money-laundering, male and wire fraud, and racketeering for all the women he scammed. Time and time again, he denied both scamming and murdering Helen, and having anything to do with her disappearance at all. However, a federal judge didn't believe this for a moment, and fully believed that Richard was behind what happened to Helen.

So he was sentenced to life in prison for all of his charges, but this sentencing was later lowered to 30 years. Although at the time of his ruling, Richard was about 65 years old, so 30 years would more than likely be a life sentence for him. But most of the years in his sentencing were for Helen's supposed murder, and I say supposed since her body has never been found, because without those charges, he only would have faced 11 years for the horse killings and insurance scams. But that's not where this ends. In 2005, so almost 30 years after Helen's disappearance, another man came forward with potential information

regarding the case. It was a man named Joe Plemons, who was a horseman who had previously been acquainted with Helen, and he said that he and 10 other people, including a police officer, beat and shot Helen to death at the request of Silas Jane and then incinerated her body at a steel mill in Gary, Indiana. And Gary is only a 30 minute drive from Chicago, so it's pretty close. And the reason why Silas had come up with this whole plan was to stop Helen from going to the police after the bad horse dealings, just as everyone had already thought. Joe Plemons admitted to investigators that he was the one who shot Helen at the demand

of mobster Silas Jane, who was pointing a double-barreled shotgun at his chest, so it was a SHOOT or B-shot situation, and with this information, Joe would be granted immunity from being prosecuted if this went any further. Joe said by the time he shot her, she appeared to already be dead from the beating, but someone had heard her moan so it's inconclusive what actually killed her. Before he had allegedly shot Helen, she was taken out of the trunk of the pink Cadillac, which was hers, wrapped in a blanket, and previously beaten by the bunch.

And we don't have a list of who these conspirators are, so it's unclear if Jack the Houseman was involved. But I know that Joe did say Richard Bailey was involved and had even previously tried to hire him to kill Helen before Silas Jane had put this plan into motion. At least one woman was apparently involved in this as well, and according to Jill Plemons, she impersonated Helen and used her plane to get home from Minnesota to return to Chicago. And this would make sense for Jack possibly being involved, and it would also make sense with him having

to clean the coral Cadillac. And I think back to the whole, I'm in a hurry, my houseman is waiting thing, and it makes me wonder if for whatever reason, Jack picked her up in the Cadillac from Rochester to drive her home. Because Rochester is maybe about a five and a half hour drive from Chicago, so it's not terribly far.

And I don't know why he would do this, like maybe so they could kill her in Minnesota. I just don't know why he would do this, like maybe so they could kill her in Minnesota. I just don't know why they wouldn't wait for her to return to Chicago, like that whole section doesn't really make sense to me. Yeah, and I think honestly if they were going to kill her, it might be best to not kill her in her home state and maybe take her out to a rural area to dispose of her body. But then it also makes me wonder if they incinerated her remains close to Chicago and the whole like carpet cleaning thing

and the wall painting thing, the wall painting in the carpet cleaning makes me think, oh, she was killed inside the house. But then why wouldn't they just wait for her to get home from Chicago on the plane? And why would Jack then apparently possibly pick her up in Minnesota? Yeah, I'm not really sure. I mean, again, the wall painting and the carpet changing may

not even be involved in this case, we don't really know, but it's an interesting thought. Since Joe's confession was just a story at this point with no evidence, please couldn't really move forward with anything. And if they really didn't celebrate her and scatter her ashes, there will never be evidence of this. The same year that Maurice Ferguson came forward saying that he helped bury her body at the request of Silas Jane and Richard Bailey, so in 1987, Silas Jane died. So he didn't face any charges for the horse crimes and died years before Richard Bailey himself was sentenced.

Joe Plemons states that he came forward with the information regarding Helen because he couldn't keep it in anymore and the guilt was just too much for him. This is a man who had a previous criminal record and was known as a crook, and he said that he enjoyed that lifestyle because of the money and the excitement. But as he got older, which he was 57 when he confessed, the Helen situation began to haunt him at every moment. He doesn't believe that he was the one who killed Helen because he really does think

that the beating was her actual cause of death, and he also stated that he never would have shot her if Silas didn also stated that he never would have shot her if Silas didn't demand that he do it. But it's still something that he was extremely guilty about. I don't know, his whole story really makes sense to me, and it's crazy to think that at least 11 people could have been involved in this whole situation. But it had to make sense, because we're looking at it like, I feel like Jack had something to do with it But then I'm like, but so did Richard and Silas and it just makes sense that multiple people had different motives and kind of banded together To to kill her. Yeah, I mean it really does seem like a conspiracy everybody had something to gain

From her death Silas wouldn't go to prison and Richard Bailey wouldn't go to prison because of the horse situation. Which they did anyway, but fuck them. Yeah, fuck them. But, and then, you know, on top of that, Jack wanted money because he had been loyal to Helen for so long and he knew what she was worth. Exactly. So, and yeah, and who else? Who else may have had a motive that we just don't know about? Exactly, so I really, really do. I do actually believe Joe here. And also, why would he just come forward with this and lie? Like, why even do this? Like, why even mention this at all? What do you have to gain from this? Yeah, I mean, there's really nothing that he's gonna gain from this situation.

Unless, I mean, he was looking at different charges and maybe he felt like this was a way to get an immunity I don't really know, but it just doesn't really seem like he's lying in this situation Jack Matlick died in 2011 in a nursing home in Pennsylvania at the age of 79 and never saw any charges regarding Helen's case Jill Plemons died in 2016 in Florida from cancer, and surprising as it is, Richard Bailey did get out of prison after nearly 30 years of entering a Florida prison at the age of 89 in July of 2019. So earlier when we were like, oh, the 30 years is kind of a death sentence anyway. It wasn't, he somehow is still alive today. He's still kicking somewhere in Florida. So I couldn't find any obituary online, so I'm assuming he's still alive if he got out less than two years ago.

So he might be somewhere out there. And he still claims that he did not do anything to Helen, nor did he have anything to do with her disappearance. Since her body and remains have never been found, no one can be sure what really happened to her. At the time of 65-year-old Helen Brock's disappearance, both of her parents had already passed and her brother Charles died many years later in 2002. Helen's husband Frank Brock is buried in her hometown in Union Port Ohio, along with both of their sets of parents. There are two dogs, sugar and candy,

and an empty tomb with Helen's name on it. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and next week we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. What a crazy story, right? Like it's so so fascinating and there's so many elements to it. Yeah, it's another one of those really crazy mysteries. I feel like we're on this train of crazy-ass mysteries lately. Oh, you just wait for next week's episode. it is weird. And also, another crazy episode will have is that bonus episode that again is related to this case of the three young women who disappeared around the same time,

and it's believed that Silas Jane possibly was involved. So make sure you join Patreon. The link is in the description of this episode, but it's also just patreon.com slash going west podcast. And thank you so much to everyone who has joined Patreon in the last week. There was a ton of you. Yeah, there was a bunch of you guys. And honestly, that episode that we put out on the Philip Island mystery is incredibly crazy.

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