Burned in a barrel: How Rockford police solved 1965 murder of 11-year-old Susan Brady

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) – In 1966, the Rockford community was shaken when charred human bone fragments were found on the far-west side of the city.

Nearly 60 years later, a local author says the case still haunts those who remember it.

“The pieces [of bone] were big enough that they could tell they came from a young, adolescent child,” said Kathi Kresol, author of the book, “Murder & Mayhem in Rockford, Illinois.”

Detectives soon realized they had likely found what was left of an 11-year-old Rockford girl who went missing a few months earlier.

“On Dec. 20, 1965, little Susan Brady and her best friend went to her best friend, Cecilia’s house,” Kresol said.

Cecilia and Susan were classmates and decided to play together after school at Cecilia’s Irving Avenue home.

“They went to school together at St. Patrick Catholic School there on School Street,” Kresol said. “And they walked to the little girl’s house, and they hung out for few hours.”

After that, Cecilia walked Susan part of the way toward her home on nearby North Day Avenue. The girls separated a few minutes later but Susan never made it home. When her parents still hadn’t found her by bedtime, they called police. The search for Susan Brady was on.

“And then it led to more and more as the days passed,” Kresol added.

The search for Susan Brady started with police and among members of St. Patrick Catholic Church, were her family attended. Before long, residents from throughout Rockford joined the effort to find the missing 11-year-old.

“There were hundreds of people who were eventually searching for this little girl in that area,” Kresol said. “And they had airplanes flying overhead, people out calling her name walking through different parks.” 

But there was no sign of Susan Brady and things started looking very bleak for her mother, Norma, and father, James, who was a reporter for The Rockford Labor News.

“After the Christmas season, the Bradys said they wanted to leave their Christmas tree up because they wanted to have Christmas with Susan when she returned,” Kresol said.

Then came a major break. As news started to spread about the disappearance, several young girls who walked home in Susan’s neighborhood told police they had been approached by a man in green Cadillac around the time she vanished. He offered to give them a ride but they all declined.

“It really creeped them out because after they said, ‘no,’ they would start walking and he would follow them very slowly in his car,” said Kresol.

Investigators got another break when learned that a local man sold a green 1961 Cadillac, quit his job and left town right after Susan went missing. 

“They followed him and found out he was now staying in San Diego,” Kresol said.

The man was 25-year-old landscaper and factory worker, Russell Charles Dewey.

Police then learned that at the time of Susan’s disappearance, Dewey was staying at his grandparents’ home on West State Street in Rockford. As the investigation ramped up, detectives made a trip to the far-west side property to speak with owners. Nobody was home, but there, behind the house, they located the burn barrel containing what the FBI later identified as human bones.

“And somehow, Russ Dewey, who was staying in California with his mother, got word, so he went and told his mother,” Kresol said.

What he shared with his mother though, didn’t exactly track with what was being uncovered by police.

“He goes to his mother and says he had hit a girl with his car,” Kresol said.

Dewey turned himself in to police on Valentine’s Day 1966. He claims that after accidentally hitting Susan with his Cadillac near St. Patrick Church, he scooped her up and headed toward Rockford Memorial Hospital, but the little girl died on the way.

Dewey told police that he decided to cremate Susan behind his grandparents’ house because he was scared, largely because he didn’t have car insurance.

“He burned her all that night and the next day,” Kresol said.

And if burning the body of an 11-year-old girl in a 55-gallon drum isn’t horrific enough, detectives uncovered more evidence that showed Susan Brady died a very ghastly and very violent death.

A sledgehammer with blood and hair on it found in the garage of his grandparents’ home was what authorities said Dewey used to bludgeon Susan to death.

At trial, prosecutors told the jury that Russell Dewey had been hunting for young girls near St. Patrick Church, hoping to lure them into his car. The panel of three men and three women heard how he kidnapped Susan near the corner of School Street and Albert Avenue and brutally killed her.

It took jurors only 47 minutes to find Dewey guilty. He was sentenced to 20 to 50 years behind bars. After prison officials deemed Dewey a model prisoner, he was paroled in 1987.

“He was released from prison, and Rockford was devastated,” Kresol said.

Russell Dewey moved to Arkansas after his release. He died in 2009.