Helen Brach - Circumstances of Disappearance

Circumstances of Disappearance

After a routine medical check-up, Helen Brach left the Mayo Clinic for the return journey by air to her north suburban Chicago mansion on February 17, 1977. A gift shop assistant near the clinic insisted that Mrs. Brach had said, “I’m in a hurry, my houseman is waiting.” This is the last sighting of Brach by an independent witness.

The crew on the commercial airliner on which she was supposed to return did not report seeing her on the flight; because of her stature and carriage Brach was not easily overlooked. Her houseman/chauffer, Jack Matlick, said that he collected her at O'Hare Airport, further asserting that Mrs. Brach, known as a "telephone addict", spent four days without making a call before she was dropped off at O’Hare for a flight to Florida, three hours early and without luggage.

Matlick, an ex-con, soon came under suspicion by the authorities for a number of reasons: he later cashed checks he claimed had been written by Mrs. Brach; he had a room repainted and re-carpeted at the mansion during this four-day period; he waited two weeks before reporting his employer missing; and he failed a lie detector test. Later, Matlick relinquished a share in her estate under threat of legal action for allegedly stealing $100,000 in gold coins from the mansion.

Jack Matlick was the focus of police attention during the investigation, but lacking solid evidence of foul play police and prosecuters shied away from a case they saw as unwinnable. Matlick always claimed to be innocent and angrily denied to reporters that he knew what happened to Mrs. Brach but a former federal agent who worked on the case said that Matlick was indeed responsible. Brach's brother was of the opinion that Matlick had been responsible for the murder of his sister without any involvement from Bailey or horse racing racketeers. On February 14, 2011 Matlick died in a Pennsylvania nursing home at the age of 79.