The Burger Chef murders
It was 44 years ago, on November 17th, 1978, when fellow employees at Burger Chef in Speedway, Indiana were abducted and murdered while closing and cleaning the restaurant.
The Disappearance
Friday night, at around midnight, Brian Kring, an employee of Burger Chef, returned to the restaurant after finishing his date to help his fellow co-workers close up. He told police: “I drove around to the back of the building, I guess to go around to the other side to park, and when I pulled around to the back, the first thing I noticed was the back door was cracked open and I decided to go in the back door.”
“I walked in there and I didn’t see anybody, and pretty sure I checked the whole store, walk-in freezer and whatever, and nobody’s there,” Kring said. “When I was walking around, I did walk into the manager’s office and I noticed that the safe is sitting wide open, cash drawers are laid out, and after that is when I called somebody, and they told me to call the police.”
Police Investigation
When police arrived at the scene, they didn’t do much of an investigation. They believed they were dealing with “reckless teenagers” who had stolen the restaurant’s money and left for a party in the assistant manager’s 1974 Chevrolet Vega.
The police declared the case embezzlement and disregarded any other potential theories. They failed to consider that the employees’ belongings had been left at the restaurant and that it was extremely rare the backdoor had been left unlocked. Police also failed to preserve the crime scene, allowing the restaurant to open the next day.
The following morning, employees wiped the crime scene clean, removing any clues and incriminating evidence. On that same day, the police returned to the restaurant and attempted to recreate the crime scene to take the pictures they failed to take the night before.
Retired Speedway police officer Buddy Ellwanger, who worked the case, said, “We screwed it [the investigation] from the beginning.”
The Families
The day after the alleged “embezzlement,” the four teens—Daniel Davis, 16, Jayne Friedt, 20, Mark Flemmonds, 16, and Ruth Ellen Shelton, 17—were missing. The parents were worried because their children had not made it home the night before.
Image Credit: IndyStar
Shelton’s parents sat by the phone waiting for police to call with updates on their daughter’s disappearance. In the meantime, the mother, Rachel, began to pray for her daughter’s safety. She wrote in her diary, “I found a number of scriptures to stand on. I read a while and I prayed a while. . . I asked the Lord to put His arms around her. I said, ‘God is still in control.”
According to Crime Capsule, Flemmond’s father, Robert, was haunted by a conversation he had with his son. They had been watching TV, where a kidnapping scene was shown. Mark told his father that if he was in a similar situation, he “wouldn’t just lay still and die” he would try to escape. That conversation gave Robert hope that his son would return home.
The Murders
Unfortunately, Friedt’s vehicle was discovered abandoned in the middle of town. The car had been unlocked, leading police to suspect foul play. When the town noticed a high level of law enforcement involvement in finding the missing teens, it launched a public search for them.
On Sunday, two days after the abduction, the four bodies were found 20 miles from the Burger Chef location in the woods of Johnson County. Davis and Shelton had been shot several times in the head and neck with a .38 revolver. They were found facing down beside each other. Friedt had been about 60 yards away. She had been stabbed twice so violently that the blade of the knife broke inside her chest. Flemmonds was found the farthest from the group, closest to the road. He was on his back and had suffered blunt force trauma to the head, possibly from bumping into a tree while attempting to escape. However, it was later revealed that he was beaten to death and died from choking on his own blood.
Kring—the teen that reported the empty restaurant— told police that Flemmonds wasn’t scheduled to work the day of the abduction; he was covering the shift for his date.
All of the victims were wearing their Burger Chef uniforms and had their belongings on, leading police to believe that the motive was more than a robbery gone wrong.
At the time, the theory authorities had was that it was a “botched robbery.”
The Possible Leads and Suspects
An eyewitness came forward a few days later with descriptions of two men: both were white, average height, with one having a beard. Law enforcement made sketches and clay models of the potential suspects and continued their investigation.
Police received no leads, until a drunken man in Greenwood bragged about being one of the killers. He was arrested and questioned but was released after passing a polygraph test.
It was in Franklin, Johnson County, that police found two men that fit the description of the witness. One of the men had spent time in jail for robbing restaurants, so the police thought they were on the right path. Due to the lack of supporting evidence, they were both released. After that lead, the case went cold until 1984.
In 1984, a man at the Pendleton Correctional Facility called police and confessed to committing the Burger Chef murders. Donald Forrester told the police he would provide information in exchange for him not having to serve time at the Indiana state prison.
On January 9, 1984, Forrester was interviewed by police. He was able to tell them exactly where the bodies were found and a piece of information that wasn’t known to the public—that a broken knife had been embedded in one of the victims. He confessed to murdering Davis and Shelton with his accomplices.
Forrester continued the interview by telling police he was in a drug gang and that he had gone to Burger Chef to collect a debt that Friedt’s brother, James, owed, but everything went wrong.
Flemmonds attempted to intervene with the suspects, and a fight developed, leaving Flemmonds unconscious when the culprits nearly beat him to death. Believing Flemmonds was dead, the suspects abducted the employees. In their heads, by kidnapping and killing the teens, they were covering up the “death” of Flemmonds.
“They were all begging,” he said.
To investigators, it seemed as if they were close to solving the case, but that proved to be wrong when a media outlet leaked that one of the suspects was working with police to help catch the other accomplices. When Forrester found out his name was leaked to the public, he recanted his confession. He died in 2006.
Police officer James Cramer wasn’t convinced by Forrester’s confession, but he was left a bit unsettled by Forrester’s last words to him: “If you send me back to prison, you’ll never solve this.”
Recent Updates
On Wednesday, November 14, 2018, the Indiana police released a picture of the knife blade that was found on Friedt’s body. The photo displayed the 4 and ½ inch blade in an attempt to jog the memory of a potential witness or someone who may have knowledge of the murders.
Image Credit: Will Higgins/ Indianapolis Star
The same year, Fox59 reported the Indiana State Police were going to resubmit evidence for forensic testing.
“Our commitment stands. We’ll continue to address the issue. We can send a message here we’re not going to stop,” said Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter about the murder case.
The Burger Chef murders remain unsolved, but not a day goes by that law enforcement and fellow true-crimers don't search for the killers of Daniel Davis, Jayne Friedt, Mark Flemmonds, and Ruth Ellen Shelton.
If anyone has any information about the Burger Chef murders contact Crime Stoppers at (317) 262- TIPS.
