By Persons Unknown | Haunted Rockford | Unlocking Secrets Since 2004

Originally published in The Rock River Times.

Joe Greco was happy that May Day in 1959. Joe and his partner, Donald Burton had been on the road for a while and were just getting back to Rockford early in the evening. Joe was feeling pretty good. Their “sales trip” as they referred to it, had been lucrative and they were hoping to score some more sales that evening.

Joe was looking forward to arriving home. He missed his girl, Donna. They had only been living together for a couple of months but things were good between them. I n fact, Joe thought everything was looking up for him. He knew his parents were still upset that he had decided not to return to the Barnes Drilling Company to work with his father. They didn’t understand that Joe wanted something different than his parent’s lives. They also didn’t understand his friendship with Burt.

Donald Burton had come from a different background than Joe. His parents had split up when he was younger and Burt grew up tough. He learned how to take care of himself and was always ready for a fight. Burt also knew some magic tricks. Those magic tricks came in handy on their “sales trips”.

Joe knew his parents would definitely not understand that side of his life. His girl, Donna called it his dark side. Whatever you wanted to call it, Joe liked living dangerously.

Since they were in a hurry, the two men decided to stop at Joe’s parent’s house at 615 Montague Street. Joe knew his parents would be gone until late. The two men grabbed something to eat and Joe changed into some fresh clothes. They left his parent’s house around 10:45 p.m..

Early the next morning, between 12:50 and 1:00 a.m. on May 2, folks who lived on Montague Road heard a couple of cars drive down the road. They didn’t hear much else other than the sound of car doors closing. One of the neighbors was curious enough to look out the window. He saw a car parked outside but didn’t see anyone around it. He figured a couple of kids had pulled over for a little alone time.

The car was still there around 4:15 a.m. when Deputy Sheriffs Lester Krug and Robert Allen spotted it. They had just turned around to investigate when a call came over the radio. They sped off to answer the call and didn’t get back to the car until around 5:00 a.m..

At first, they thought the same thing as the neighbor and believed they would catch a couple of kids in an embarrassing position. The men were confused when they shone their lights in the car and found it empty. They made their way to the back of the car and decided to open the trunk.

The bodies of Joseph Greco and Donald Burton were found stuffed into that trunk. They both were only 21 years old. Coroner Collins Y. Sundberg examined the men and determined that they had been dead around four to five hours. Both men had some small bruises and Burton had been hit on the head. Authorities would theorize that he had fought his attackers. It was stated that both men had been strangled with a piece of rope. Joseph was carried to the trunk while Burton, who had a heavier build, was dragged to the car. The dragging had caused scrapes to his back.

The car trunk contained a couple of suitcases, 500 pairs of shaved dice, and walkie talkies that would be traced to a robbery in Peoria. When they searched the suitcases, Sheriff Deputies came across Joseph and Burton’s address books. They were filled with names of contacts listed in different states including Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri and Florida. Most of the names were listed for Peoria and the authorities recognized some of those names as part of a gambling syndicate.

The pieces to the puzzle of the men’s deaths started to fall into place for the authorities. While searching the car they found a piece of evidence that chilled even the most experienced officers. Inside one of the suitcases they recovered a $5.00 bill that had been torn into quarters. There were only two pieces of the bill found. One portion had the words, “Good Luck, Joe.” on it and the other piece had, “Good Luck, Burt.” The pieces fit together to make up half of the bill.

One man involved in the search said it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up when those pieces were found. All involved in the search took the pieces as a warning to the dead men. Unfortunately, it was a warning the two men had not heeded.

Though police had the motive for the murders of these two young men from the beginning and were hopeful they would uncover who had committed the crime, the investigation stalled. They came up against a wall of silence. The other men that traveled in the gambling circuit in Illinois made themselves scarce. They might have taken these deaths as warnings of what was in store for them if they talked.

These two murders were never solved and are listed under Rockford’s “Cold Case Files” along with twenty four others.