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While investigators began checking up on known sex offenders in the Starved Rock area, others brought heavy tanks of liquid petroleum gas into the canyon and slowly began burning away the top layer of snow. A piece of tin foil—perhaps from the fresh roll of film in the camera—turned up; the melting snow ran off to reveal blood stains. A policeman with a broom lightly swept snow from the spot in an attempt to unearth footprints. He found none. Police squads began checking reports about an auto that had been seen at the head of the trail. The film in the camera revealed only smiling photos of Frankie Murphy and Mildred Lindquist, taken by Lillian Oetting (see cut).
At week's end police admitted that they were still far from solving the grisly crime. "It's got to be somebody from Chicago followed them down here, " said a Starved Rock employee. "We don't have no people like that around here." But the police were not sure about that either.