Burger Chef Murders: Speedway, Indiana’s Unsolved Mystery
Many of us got our start in the work force at a fast food restaurant, pushing burgers and fries at a hungry public. Many more of us got our start at McDonald’s and took advantage of our employee discounts until we couldn’t eat there for years afterward. Teenagers work grills and jock cash registers through the summer as they save up for something big, or even help out family. We encourage teens and young adults to seek employment at a restaurant because you gotta start somewhere, right? No one really thinks of anything terrible happening at a restaurant. Especially not today, with cameras and cell phones everywhere you look. Unfortunately this was not always the case. The world of 1978 was vastly different and a lack of surveillance was only the beginning.
For this post I read a very detailed and impressive article on unsolved.me. I also listened to an amazing episode of Unsolved Murders: True Crime Stories on Apple Podcasts. This Parcast produced podcast did a great job of researching and presenting this fascinating case, with voice actors reenacting it like an episode of an old timey radio show.
Burger Chef once rivaled Wendy’s and McDonald’s in the US as one of the top fast food chains in the country. They opened the doors of their first location in Indiana in 1954 and the rest was history. By the 1970s the restaurant had expanded to 1,200 locations across the US. Next to McDonald’s this became the most popular place for high school students to get their first after-school and summer jobs. Like Burger King today, they were well-known for their char-broiled burgers.
Burger Chef was also known for their fun meals. Just like McDonald’s happy meals, they were kids value meals that came with a toy. Burger Chef was the first to do a tie-in deal that brought themed toys to their meals. Joining forces with 1977’s Star Wars, for a limited time they brought Star Wars toys to fun meal boxes all over the country. Children loved the toys and it turned out to be a big hit, leading other chains to take up the idea. While many of us grew up getting themed toys in our kids’ meals, this was a big deal back then. The toys are collectibles now, worth up to $650 a piece today.
It was no wonder kids across America were losing it over these toys. With the chance to get an X-Wing fighter, a land speeder, a C3P0 droid puppet, or an R2D2 droid puppet among other great toys these were must-haves for any young Star Wars fan of the time. The fun meal box itself was also made to be entertaining with activities and puzzles on the sides.
While the Burger Chef menu was simple there was still plenty to choose from. Their most popular burger was known as the Big Shef. With a middle bun, it looked exactly like a Big Mac. They also sold fries, shakes, ham and cheese sandwiches, fish sandwiches, barbecue sandwiches, and apple turnovers as well as smaller, simpler burgers. Later they would improve upon their classic restaurant by adding a salad bar and what they called the Works Bar, where you could build your own burger any way you pleased. Along with these add-ons came a hostess at the door of every Burger Chef.
Everyone in America knows the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Even those who are not racing fans are aware of the Indy 500 race, the world’s oldest race car competition. However most people are completely unaware of the town of Speedway, Indiana. Incorporated in the 1920s, the town was formed to support the ever-growing automotive industry of the time. It’s located just west of downtown Indianapolis and doesn’t differ much from the metropolitan area. Boasting a population of 12,000 in 1980 they had their own police force, public school system, and post office at their disposal. This was a safe place to live with little crime to speak of. Violent crime was a foreign concept to the residents of this sleepy little suburban area.
Their peaceful quiet was shattered and their warm security ripped away in the summer of 1978, though. It all started when sixty-five year old Julia Scyphers advertised some fine china at a garage sale. She was later contacted about the china and arranged for the man that called to come pick it up from her house. This buyer called ahead before coming over and Julia told her husband about the sale. He thought nothing of it when a long haired man came to the house looking for his wife. He showed him to the garage, where she was at, and left the pair. Julia’s husband would come running back when he heard gunshots ring out from the garage. As the long haired man sped away in a car, Julia laid in a puddle of blood on the ground.
Julia Scyphers was not the kind of person anyone would see this happening to. She was a faithful attendee of her church and she worked as a librarian. This innocent, quiet woman enjoyed working with the Girl Scouts in the area as well. She was seemingly an enemy of no one. Just a loving wife, mother, and grandmother to her family.
The murder of Julia Scyphers was the first crime of this level that Speedway had ever experienced. The community was shocked and horrified. The calm, unassuming librarian only had one person that could’ve been considered an enemy. A businessman by the name of Brett Kimberlin had been employing Julia’s daughter, Sandra. While Sandra was working for him, he sexually harassed her teenage daughter. Julia was infuriated to hear of what happened to her granddaughter. Her immediate response was to file a restraining order against Brett.
Police chased this lead down. From the beginning they worked under the theory that this was a revenge killing. Brett Kimberlin was thought to have hired the hit out in his rage over the restraining order. Unfortunately this case would go unsolved for far too long before Brett was charged and convicted along with an accomplice named William Bowman.
The community was still on edge in the wake of Julia Scypher’s murder when chaos erupted throughout Speedway. Between September 1 and September 6, 1978 a string of bombings rattled the once safe and tranquil town. Eight bombings occurred over this short period of time and they were surely meant to cause harm. The wounds of the town’s summertime murder were still fresh and the killer still on the loose when residents began to worry about being blown to pieces. Bombs had been placed and detonated at a motel, a shopping mall, inside a bowling alley, underneath an off-duty police officer’s patrol car, and inside a gym bag left in the Speedway High School parking lot. While only three people were injured in these bombings, the injuries were pretty severe, though not fatal. A Vietnam veteran lost a leg while his wife suffered a severed artery from shrapnel. Another victim would also suffer wounds from flying shrapnel in one of these explosions.
Components from these bombs were traced back to a specific hardware store in the area. An employee of that store confidently identified the man that bought these items as Brett Kimberlin. Though it would take years, Brett would finally be charged with the Speedway bombings as well as Julia’s cold-blooded murder. Until that time the entire town lived their lives on the edges of their seats as they waited for the next terrible thing to happen. They never could’ve imagined exactly how terrible it would end up being.
Meanwhile at the Speedway Burger Chef employees were especially nervous. One of the explosions occurred just up the street from the popular restaurant, prompting several of the young crew members to quit their jobs almost all at once. With the unsolved murder of a sweet grandmother and a string of unsolved bombings the public was anxious, scared, and confused. Faith in their police force quickly diminished and things wouldn’t get any better any time soon.
The Crawfordsville Road Burger Chef in Speedway had a dedicated team left even after the rash of resignations. Their assistant manager, Jayne Friedt, was a shining example to any young woman looking to better herself and her position. Her exhausting list of extracurriculars in high school would make anyone else’s head spin. While serving as a member of the yearbook staff, she also took part in choir, drama, gymnastics, band, pep club, and worked as a library assistant and a teacher’s aide. At the age of seventeen, in 1975, she added Burger Chef employee to her staggeringly long list of responsibilities.
Jayne was born on May 2, 1958 and was known to all as “Sweet Jayne.” Her parents, George and Carolyn Friedt, knew their hard-working daughter was destined for something great. Her father worked as a railroad conductor while her mother tended to her and the home. Remembered for a good sense of humor and a quick wit, she was often compared to comedian Lily Tomlin. Her can-do attitude and persistence in moving up gave her future a glimmer that everyone around her could see.
By 1978 Jayne was twenty years old and living in her own apartment as she worked full time at the Crawfordsville Road Burger Chef. Soon after starting at a different store in their chain, Jayne was given a promotion and transferred. Responsible for training all of the other employees, she liked her job. There was just one thing that irked her to no end, though. Jayne was continuing to train new employees for the same pay rate as she watched other younger, and less experienced workers get promotions and raises. The fact that they were all male only got under her skin more. Instead of holding her frustration in and gritting her teeth, Jayne decided to do something about it. She confronted her manager and in response was promoted to assistant manager.
Daniel Davis was a fairly new employee who had been hired after the many recent resignations. Only sixteen years old, he was still attending high school while harboring big dreams of joining the Air Force. He loved to joke around with his fellow employees, making him a perfect fit for Jayne’s night shift crew. A passion for photography filled his spare time as he took pictures and developed them himself in his homemade darkroom. With such talent and aspirations Daniel’s future seemed a sure thing.
Mark Flemmonds was also just sixteen and still in high school. Coming from a strict household, his parents, Robert and Blondell, had raised him and his siblings in the Jehovah’s Witness faith. Mark was the youngest of seven children in what was a very loving and supportive household. He had struggled at school for some time before he finally managed to regain his focus and bring his grades back up. When he decided to apply for a job at Burger Chef on Crawfordsville Road his parents heavily considered his improvement before allowing him to take on more. The restaurant was within walking distance of their home, which further prompted them to give their permission. With their son working so close to home what could possibly go wrong?
Ruth Ellen Shelton was born on December 19, 1960. Only seventeen years old, she held drive and determination not seen in many of her age. Though she was still attending high school her dreams of being a computer scientist wouldn’t be put on hold for a diploma. To gain an edge in college she was already taking business and math classes at a college level while balancing several youth ministries at the Westside Church of Nazarene. As dedicated as she was to school, she was equally dedicated to her faith. With the little spare time she left herself Ruth liked to sing and do crafts. Her first job had been at the Dunkin Donuts just next door to the Crawfordsville Road Burger Chef. She would eventually move on to the Burger Chef night shift, joining Jayne’s tight-knit crew of can-do teens.
Ruth was about to hand in her notice along with all the others in the wake of the Speedway bombings. Surprisingly her reasons for quitting were different from everyone else’s. While the rest had quit out of fear, Ruth just had too much on her plate at the time with all of her extracurricular activities and her part time job. She wanted to find a little time for herself before the time came to enter adulthood and take on all of its responsibilities. When she approached the manager with her decision he asked that she at least stay until after the holidays. With Christmas around the corner and the restaurant short staffed they just couldn’t take another resignation until after the holiday rush. Ruth wasn’t the type to let her friends and coworkers hang out to dry, so she decided to stay until the Christmas craze died down.
On Friday, November 17, 1978 these four young, passionate, diligent employees were working the night shift at Burger Chef. Mark Flemmonds wasn’t scheduled for that night, but had decided to swap shifts with a coworker named Ginger Haggard so she could have the night off. At the last minute he tried to get out of the shift, but was unable. That night was like any other as they served hungry customers and went about their usual duties. When 11:00 rolled around it was time to lock the doors and close the restaurant down. They cleaned the floor, scrubbed the dishes and serving trays, closed out the registers, and counted all the money. At some point between 11:00 and 12:00 the kids were interrupted and something terrible happened.
To this day, forty-six years later, no one knows exactly what transpired on that fateful night. All we know is that for whatever reason the town’s terror hit its crescendo. While those innocent, unsuspecting kids closed the restaurant their death was closing in on them. It was careful to not leave evidence. All it left in its wake was fear, anguish, and anger.
It was a little after midnight on November 18 when another coworker arrived at the restaurant to check in. Brian Craine was driving back home as he passed by his place of employment. He decided to stop by and see if his coworkers needed any help closing. What he found was an alarming and odd scene. Knowing the front doors would already be locked that time of night, he went around to the backdoor to gain entrance. While it should’ve been closed and locked at all times, he was more likely to be heard knocking by his coworkers in the back of the restaurant. Although if he caught them taking out the trash the door would already be open for him to walk in. When he found the door left ajar he thought nothing of it at first, walking inside of what turned out to be a dark, empty restaurant.
He called out to Jayne, fully expecting a happy response. When none came he began to notice oddities about the store. The cash register drawer was lying on the floor. Fastidious Ruth Ellen’s coat was left lying on the floor as well, something she would never do. Jayne and Ruth’s purses were both left behind, and Jayne’s coat was also found inside the restaurant. First Brian made a quick call to the previous Burger Chef location Jayne had worked at to see if the crew had gone there for some reason. They hadn’t heard from any of them. Then he called his manager to see if he had heard from Jayne or any of the others.
The alarm bells fully went off at the realization that their manager hadn’t heard from the crew that night. He advised Brian to call the police immediately, which is exactly what he did. Of all the things he saw there that night the most concerning was the state of Ruth Ellen’s coat. To find it just carelessly lying on the floor wasn’t normal for a girl so known for being neat and clean. The fact that their coats had been left behind at all in the middle of November was also extremely worrisome. According to Weather Underground the temperature between 11:00 and 12:00 that night hovered at forty-two degrees.
The store manager arrived right behind the police. He would need to count all the money up to determine exactly how much had been taken. The safe was found to be sitting wide open with $581 in cash missing along with other valuables contained within. While that might not sound like much now, in 1978 that was the equivalent of $2,870 today. Strangely there was over $100 in register change left behind along with Jayne and Ruth’s purses. If this were a robbery, why take employees and not all of the money? Jayne’s white 1974 Chevrolet Vega was missing from the parking lot, which led police to their first theory.
Initially police thought that the kids ripped the store off themselves, taking the money for a night out on the town together in Jayne’s car. This theory didn’t jive at all with what people knew of the four missing Burger Chef employees. Instead of making the most of the first hours of their disappearance they decided to wait around and see if the kids turned up. But they never did. They also never resurfaced for their next scheduled shifts at work.
At about 1:00 that morning the parents were informed that their children were missing. As police considered that this could’ve been an armed robbery they were stymied by the fact that the kids were nowhere to be found. Typically armed robberies only resulted in some stolen cash and frightened employees. Never had police responded to a possible robbery in which the employees had seemingly vanished into thin air. As the scene was looked over and all the possibilities considered it began to look more and more like these kids were in serious danger, wherever they were.
While Ruth, Jayne, and Daniel’s families were reached and informed, Mark’s parents received a much stranger call. Robert Flemmonds answered a late night phone call from police asking if his son worked at the Crawfordsville Road Burger Chef. When he replied yes, he was asked if Mark had made it home yet. Robert said that he had not and was asked to call the station back if he did. Knowing their son well enough to know that he would not be out so late on his own, his parents got in the car and drove straight to the Speedway Police Station to find out what was going on. It was there that they were finally informed that Mark and his co-workers had gone missing after an apparent robbery. The way that Robert and Blondell were informed is only made stranger by the fact that Mark was the only black employee among the missing four.
The search for the kids was just starting to get under way as Mark’s parents learned of the tragedy. Although their efforts were less than stellar in the beginning as they operated under the misguided theory that the kids were to blame. The restaurant they disappeared from wasn’t photographed or processed as a crime scene. No fingerprints were lifted in an attempt to find out who was there that night. When the full search was launched the FBI and the Indiana State Police were called in to assist. By foot, by car, and by helicopter they scoured the area around Burger Chef with a fine tooth comb, figuring that they couldn’t have been far.
Jayne’s white Vega was found at 4:30 that morning sitting only two blocks from the Speedway Police Station on West 15th Street. When her mother was informed of the discovery she was asked if Jayne was known to lock her car. Carolyn assured police that she always locked it up. They knew then that something was terribly amiss. They had found her car abandoned with the passenger door left unlocked. When it was dusted for prints none could be found. Not even Jayne’s own fingerprints are said to have been pulled from her car. The Vega was a two door car, meaning with only the passenger door left unlocked that was the only exit for those getting out.
So far Jayne’s car was the only evidence there was to work with, and it didn’t prove to be much. It did help police to form their next theory, though. They thought that somewhere between 11:00 and 12:00 that night a robber came in through the backdoor and surprised the kids as they were closing up the restaurant. Since the backdoor stayed locked until time to take the trash out they figured that the robber or robbers had to have ambushed them while the trash was going outside. The kids were held hostage as the safe was cleaned out, and then for reasons only known to those involved, they herded the four employees into Jayne’s car. Her car was driven ten blocks to the location where it was found and they were forced back out. Where to and to what end was still unknown.
As the search was continuing into the morning Burger Chef’s morning crew arrived to work, completely unaware of the events that transpired less than twelve hours earlier. While it’s not known exactly how much they were told when they arrived, it is known that the eventual revelation of the disappearance rattled them to their cores. Officers wanted to keep a tight lid on the investigation for as long as they could. Local media had not even been alerted to the mysterious crime yet. The morning shift crew cleaned the restaurant, sanitizing every inch before opening at their regular time. It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that police realized their terrible mistake in not processing the restaurant. By the time their blunder had been realized the store had been cleaned thoroughly and open for hours. Any chance they might have had to gather evidence was lost.
The Speedway Police of 1978 can be forgiven for making some mistakes. Before that year the area had reported little to no violent crime. The Julia Scyphers murder in July had been the first serious crime to impact the small town and it seemed that officers had learned little from the experience. But because the restaurant didn’t present like the scene of a violent crime they never thought to process it like one. It just looked like a night interrupted, with the people that should’ve been there missing. Instead of picking up on the small cues that Brian Craine had they glossed over them and jumped to conclusions due to the employees ages. It would all serve to bite them in the ass as this case sits colder than ice on Speedway’s unsolved shelf to this day.
Though police tried to keep things as quiet as possible news of the missing Burger Chef employees broke and spread like an infectious disease. Everyone in town was talking and some even called in tips. An unnamed teenage couple out on a date that night were the most notable. It’s been reported that the two were walking on the train tracks near the restaurant. Although it’s also been said that they were hanging out in the Dunkin Dounts parking lot just next door. Either way the couple was near the Burger Chef at around 11:30 that night when they were approached by two white men they thought to be somewhere in their thirties. While their interaction with these men seemed strange at the time it started to seem downright criminal when news of the missing kids came to light.
The mysterious men wore shabby clothes as they walked up to the teenagers. One man had dark hair and a dark beard and mustache. The other was clean shaven with light-colored hair. The dark-haired man blew his nose into a handkerchief as he addressed the couple, issuing them a warning. He said that it wasn’t safe to be out so late with so much recent crime in the area. The pair decided to take him seriously and leave, cutting through the Burger Chef parking lot. They walked right past Jayne’s white Chevrolet Vega as they made their shortcut.
A sergeant familiar with hypnosis was brought in to hypnotize the teenagers to see if any additional memories could be pulled from the recesses of their minds. They managed to gain confirmation that the car they passed in the Burger Chef parking lot was Jayne’s. The esoteric men in their thirties became the prime suspects in this cloudy case as officers scrambled to find out who they were. Meanwhile more tips were pouring in from all over Speedway, particularly from residents of Lupine Drive, not far from where Jayne’s car was found.
One resident of the area called to report seeing two vehicles driving very fast, both with their headlights strangely turned off. One of them was a two-tone van. The car appeared to have teenagers inside, but how this person could tell, I’m not sure. Though the caller could not be certain, they thought they may have heard a scream from the car. Both vehicles made an abrupt stop and someone may have gotten out of the van and walked over to the car.
Another tip from Lupine Drive reported two vehicles driving down the road with their headlights off. In this report the vehicles only slowed down, though. They didn’t stop as they had in the last report. It’s important to note that Ruth Ellen lived on Lupine Drive with her parents, who never reported seeing anything out of the ordinary that night. Though they likely wouldn’t have been out late enough to have seen what these witnesses claimed.
Armed with composite sketches of the thirty-something-year-old strangers the teenagers had seen police did something quite odd. They had full size clay busts commissioned by a forensic artist bearing the likeness of the sketches. A quick Google search can produce these weird-looking works of art.
On November 19 in Johnson County, Indiana, just twenty miles from the Crawfordsville Road Burger Chef, an unnamed couple were enjoying a leisurely walk across their sprawling property. The autumn colors were in full bloom, making this a beautifully peaceful walk on any other day. As they wandered near Stones Crossing Road, leaves crunching under their feet, they made a terrifying discovery. Lying face down in the dirt and gathering piles of leaves were four bodies. All four were clad in brown and orange Burger Chef uniforms. They had found Jayne, Ruth, Daniel, and Mark. Immediately the couple fled back home to notify the authorities.
Ruth and Daniel were lying side-by-side, having suffered multiple gunshots to the head, neck, and shoulders from a .38 caliber. A .38 was later found discarded on a street near the Johnson County woods that the kids were found in, but investigators couldn’t connect it to the crime. Jayne was lying just a few yards away with a blade broken off in her sternum. The handle was never found. It was thought that she had made an attempt at fleeing due to the distance between her body and Ruth and Daniel’s. It was also thought that at least two people were involved as Jayne was the only victim stabbed.
Mark was found further from Daniel and Ruth than Jayne had been. Once the medical examiner had time to conduct a full autopsy it was found that his death was likely an accident that occurred during the crime. Though he sustained blunt force trauma to the head that wasn’t the cause of his death. It was the position he laid in that caused him to asphyxiate. Had he not been left in that position he very well could’ve survived the attack. It was theorized that due to his proximity from his coworkers, the way in which he was found, and his cause of death that he had fled as well. Making it only a little further than Jayne managed to, he struck a tree mid-stride and knocked himself unconscious, leading to his death. While it was quite obvious that Jayne, Ruth, and Daniel had been the victims of a cruel homicide no one could ever quite figure out if Mark’s death had been accidental or intentional.
Rather than inform the frantically worried parents over the phone they were asked to come down to the station to speak with police in person. They never could’ve expected the devastating news they received. After tearing the world out from under their parents Chief Copeland of the Speedway Police gave a press conference. The only details he released were the discovery of the bodies and the fact that a firearm had been used in the commission of the crime.
On November 24, 1978, Jayne Friedt, Ruth Ellen Shelton, and Daniel Davis were laid to rest as their friends, family, and classmates all came to show an outpouring of support. Mark Flemmonds funeral was held the following day with much the same kind of turn-out. The community was saddened over the loss, confused by the crime, and enraged that the perpetrators hadn’t already been caught. It seemed to them as though their once sheltered corner of the world had finally fallen to the types of degeneracy seen in bigger cities with larger populations. Their safe and insulated little town had opened up to the depravity of the world and its residents were terrified at what could happen next.
It’s no surprise that the scene in the Johnson County woods was handled about as well as the scene at Burger Chef had been. There was no shortage of police presence with the Speedway Police, the Indiana State Police, the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, the Indianapolis Police, and the FBI all looking for clues among the fallen leaves. Since no one from any of these offices thought to seal off the scene, officers and agents were pulling their cars over parts of the area that should’ve been taped off. A Speedway officer even took a vital piece of identifying evidence from one of the bodies home with him by accident, not catching his own mistake until weeks later. While the woods provided no evidence it’s not clear if the reason was that there was none to find, or that the scene had been so compromised that none could be found.
Even though $100 in register change was found at the restaurant along with the girls’ purses police still operated under the theory of robbery. Since Mark was supposed to have been off that night they wondered if the robbers weren’t people that he knew. Possibly they picked that very night to rob the store because they didn’t think he would be there to identify them. When it was found that he was there the decision was made to kill everyone as witnesses. However the discovery of the bodies threw a monkey wrench directly into that theory. A few of the kids still had their watches, jewelry, and money in their pockets. Robbers wouldn’t have left anything of value behind. So with the discovery of the employees and their valuables police returned to the drawing board for a possible motive.
Another sweep of the Burger Chef parking lot produced a partial tire track that police hoped to tie to the killer’s car. It led nowhere, though and authorities were forced to beg the public for help in the form of tips. The public had already lost all faith in their police force by that point, though. With the Speedway bombings and Julia and Scyphers’s murder still unsolved at that point the community was quite open about their confidence in this case being solved. One local even commented to a newspaper reporter that he wouldn’t be shocked to see people packing up their homes and getting out of town.
With such a sudden and frightening spike in violent crime the public felt unsafe. The lack of progress made in the previous cases only worsened their fears. Several Burger Chef employees on Crawfordsville Road predictably quit their jobs. Gun stores were seeing their shelves wiped out as residents all over Speedway armed themselves. Parents understandably worried for the safety of their children in these vicious times.
The voice of reason came from an unexpected place. Carolyn Friedt offered a statement to the community’s parents meant to soothe their nerves and remind them of what’s best. You can’t simply lock your doors and insulate your children from the world. Eventually they will have to walk out into it on their own. If they never experience what’s out there they never learn to be weary. When the outside world finally reaches them, they’re left woefully naive to the ugly parts that most people know to avoid.
A hopeful lead turned up in the unlikeliest of places. In Oklahoma City six people had been massacred at a steak house called Steak n’ Shake in July 1978. With the murders being so similar and only months apart police thought the same people could be responsible. Speedway investigators met up with detectives from Oklahoma City familiar with the case. Like everything else thus far the lead didn’t pan out, sending the investigators home empty-handed and desperate for a crumb of evidence.
In their sympathy for the lost employees and their families the Burger Chef Systems company offered a $25,000 cash reward for information. Today that would amount to $120,465.87. Meanwhile Steak n’ Shake offered an additional $10,000 to that reward, worth $48,186.35 today. Even with so much money on the table for any who may know something no one came forward.
The sketches and busts made of the two unknown prime suspects generated a few tips that also led nowhere. A man resembling one of them was overheard at a bar in Greenwood, bragging about killing the kids. Detective Virgil Vandagriff decided that he would go undercover and visit the bar to talk this man up. As they played a game of pool together the man couldn’t help but to brag about his supposed crime, even breaking his pool cue over his knee to show how he killed one of them. Soon after this admission of guilt he was arrested and brought in for questioning. Under the pressure of interrogation he crumpled, quickly changing his story and proclaiming his innocence.
He was hooked up to a polygraph to see if he was being honest. In the late 70s polygraphs were still seen as a fool-proof method of eliminating suspects. It wasn’t until later that they were debunked as a pseudo science and put in their rightful place in the justice system. Though a polygraph test is not admissible in court today, that could not be said in 1978. Did this man pass his polygraph because he was being honest, or because he didn’t show enough emotion or anxiety to set it off? We’ll never know. What we do know is that he passed and evaded suspicion.
Before this unnamed man left the police station free and clear, he gave investigators a few names to look into. Claiming that these named men were part of a “fast-food robbery gang,” they would soon find that one of them matched the mysterious sketch of the light-haired man. He was tracked down only to find that he had a solid alibi for the night in question. However his neighbor matched the other sketch of the bearded man with dark hair. This got the investigator’s attention. Especially when the bearded neighbor was asked to come in for a line-up and arrived freshly shaven. They would soon find that this was the first time he’d shaved in five years.
The newly clean shaved suspect was offered a plea deal in exchange for everything he knew of the Burger Chef murders. He was stone cold and un-moving in his silence. He would give up nothing and end up being turned loose due to the lack of evidence against him. Authorities were forced to drop their pursuit against him as Chief Copeland faced the end of his career.
By this point in our timeline more than a year had passed since the murders. Copeland was no closer to solving the case than he was at the beginning and the public wanted his job. In more than a year he hadn’t even found a potential suspect. More than two-hundred officers voted to fire him before the Metropolitan Board of Police let him go from his position. Even his own officers had no faith in his ability to solve the cases dropped at their door that year. Low morale and psychological damage had been the effect on those tasked with working such violent crimes under Copeland’s leadership. As Captain William R. Bergen stepped into the chief’s shoes nobody in Speedway thought the change would make a difference at that point. Too much time had passed in a case that started out cold.
As the case grew icicles authorities started to consider if one of the kids had been involved in dealing drugs. When Jayne Friedt’s brother, James, was arrested on drug charges in March 1981 they began to examine that angle more closely. They wondered if her brother’s involvement in drugs hadn’t gotten Jayne and her coworkers killed, either directly or inadvertently. A lack of evidence caused investigators to end their inquiry into him as well. In May 1982 Mark Flemmond’s brother, Kevin, was arrested for drug trafficking as well as the murder of drug trafficker Adrian A. Brown. This outrageous lead went as far as the others and was dropped just as quickly. There was never an ounce of evidence to suggest that any of the four Burger Chef employees used or dealt drugs. Yet another theory tossed out the window as unlikely.
By 1984, six years had passed since the senseless and seemingly motiveless crime against four fast food employees just trying to close up for the night. That year Burger Chef blinked out of existence when the Hardee’s corporation bought the franchise for $44 million. Once the old locations were remodeled they reopened as Hardee’s restaurants, ending an era in fast food. That didn’t mean the residents of Speedway forgot the old Burger Chef, though, or what happened there in 1978.
In November of that year twenty-four year old Donald Wayne Forrester had just been convicted of rape and sentenced to ninety-five years in prison. He was sitting in the Pendleton Correctional Facility awaiting a transfer to his new address at the Indiana State Prison. As he awaited a transfer that would most certainly translate to a death sentence, he decided to make a phone call, or what some may refer to as a Hail Mary. He wanted to confess to the Burger Chef murders. Speedway police initially had put little stock into this desperate man’s word. They went to Pendleton expecting to find another dead end. Just another convict facing hard time trying to barter information for a lighter sentence or better accommodations.
Investigators were surprised at how much Forrester was able to tell them about the killings. They found that he’d grown up near the Johnson County woods and that he was living in Speedway at the time of the crime. When brought to Marion County for questioning he didn’t disappoint. He claimed to have been the one to execute Ruth and Daniel and even confirmed that a .38 caliber had been used in their murders. When taken on a field trip to the woods he was able to show police to the exact spots where each of the kids had been found. Between 1984 and 1986 he slowly handed the police more information bit by bit. Everything he fed them panned out, giving them no reason not to believe his story. Speedway Police were convinced they had finally found one of the men responsible.
Forrester said that he returned to the woods after their murders, taking his then wife with him. He came back for the sole purpose of gathering the spent .38 shell casings that were left behind. He disposed of the casings at his home, flushing them down the toilet. By the time Forrester was cooperating with officials from behind bars, he and his wife had long since been divorced. His ex-wife was tracked down and confirmed everything he said. She remembered riding out to the Johnson County woods with him to retrieve the bullet casings. She also remembered her ex-husband flushing them down their toilet.
With a signed search warrant in hand authorities searched the septic tank of the home they shared at that time. They searched through eight years worth of raw sewage before hitting pay-dirt. They found several .38 casings that seemed to confirm everything this man had told them so far.
With this discovery Forrester finally offered up a full story. He said that they had been on the right track with James Friedt’s drug use. Claiming that James had racked up debts with multiple dealers, he said that a group of them got together with the goal of getting paid. They decided to visit his sister at the Burger Chef to get their money out of her. When they started lobbing threats at her, Mark Flemmonds stepped in to defend her. The interaction devolved into a full-on fight in which Mark fell and hit his head, knocking himself unconscious. The dealers began to panic, believing him to be dead. The snap decision was made to corral the kids into Jayne’s white Vega and take them all out at once as witnesses to murder.
The kids were driven to the middle of town before the car was abandoned on West 15th Street. From there they all jumped into the getaway car. Forrester described the murders in such stark detail that he only further convinced police he was in on it. He also offered three names of people he claimed to have been involved as well. Speedway Police could finally see the end of this case. The finish line was right within their grasp and convictions almost certain until November 1986. The fact that they could almost taste victory before it was dashed away only made it that much harder to cope with.
Thanks to a leak in the department in November 1986, information on Forrester made its way into the press. Thoroughly spooked, he recanted all of his statements and refused to say another word on the matter. The Johnson County woods were searched once more, but after so long there was less to find than there had been eight years earlier. With no physical evidence to speak of authorities were completely reliant on Forrester and his confession. Now it was dashed away with no hope of any further cooperation. As though it were flash frozen, the case immediately went cold again. Forrester died of cancer in prison in 2006, taking whatever he may have known to his grave with him. Not once in the last twenty years of his life did he ever mention the Burger Chef murders again.
Believe it or not the Speedway Police still get tips on this crime today. Maybe with some good fortune one of those phone calls will be from a perpetrator ready to absolve himself of his crimes. For the last forty-six years investigators have passed this case down like a dimly lit torch, hoping the next one will be able to find the missing puzzle pieces. The case file has grown into more than twenty binders, all three-inches thick.
First Sergeant Bill Dalton received an esteemed promotion to Indianapolis District Investigations Commander, earning him many more responsibilities. He oversees operations, reviews case reports, and maybe most importantly, he’s in charge of keeping up with cold cases. In 2018 he announced that new forensic technology was being looked into for the old, cold case. He even released one of their very few pieces of evidence they have. The broken blade in Jayne Friedt’s sternum hadn’t been widely reported on before that point. Sergeant Dalton released a picture of it in the hopes someone may recognize the blade after so many years. Though the case is classified as cold Speedway hasn’t given up on it yet. Likely they never will.
Unfortunately this case was damned from the very night it was committed. The initial investigation was irreparably botched thanks to a lack of crime scene training. While we can hope that newer technology or a deathbed confession may finally close it, that still remains to be seen. With better training for officers and more advanced forensic technology maybe the investigators of today can make up for the failings of 1978. After forty-six years the surviving friends and family members of those dedicated, hard-working kids deserve answers to what happened on their last shift.