 Initially, Bedwell was insistent that John and Minnie Duros and a patron named Rene Echols (who had corroborated the Duros's eyewitness statements) were mistaken in their identification of the girls he had been in the company of on December 30, although he was formally charged with the sisters' murders on January 27, 1957, having signed a 14-page confession in which he said he (Bedwell) and a 28-year-old acquaintance of his named William Cole Willingham had indeed been in the company of the Grimes sisters on December 30, having also retained their company until January 7—typically drinking in various West Madison Street skid row saloons.According to Bedwell, after several days in the girls' willing company, shortly after he and his companion had fed the sisters hot dogs, they had extensively beaten both girls, before throwing their nude bodies into a snow-filled ditch when both sisters had refused their sexual advances.Upon reading Bedwell's confession, Lorretta Grimes was quoted as stating