Four young employees were working the night shift at a Speedway fast food restaurant in November 1978 when they were abducted, never to be seen alive again.
Two days after they were reported missing, their bodies were found in a densely wooded area of northwestern Johnson County.
Two of the employees were shot execution-style. One was stabbed in the chest. One was brutally beaten and choked to death on his own blood.
The murders of the four Burger Chef employees shocked Johnson County and the greater Indianapolis area. Police launched a massive investigation and considered many suspects. But no one has ever been charged.
Now nearly 45 years later, two podcasters say hundreds of pages of federal investigative records released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request will provide new details about the murders, and hope it will jog memories and finally lead to justice for the victim’s families.
“It’s time for people who may know something to stop sitting on that,” said Áine Cain, a journalist and co-host of the Murder Sheet Podcast, an Indianapolis-based podcast that specializes in investigative deep dives into crimes and legal proceedings.
Four bodies found
The nearly 45-year-long mystery began the night of Nov. 17, 1978, at a Burger Chef restaurant at 5725 Crawfordsville Road in Speedway.
A 911 caller reported that the restaurant’s back door was standing open. Officers found some of the employees’ purses and jackets on the counter inside, but the workers were gone.
At first, police assumed the four workers were across the street at an under-21 club. But as the night wore on, they didn’t return and police began investigating the disappearances as abductions.
However, a crucial mistake was made on the morning of Nov. 18, 1978: the restaurant’s morning shift was allowed inside to clean the Burger Chef and open it for business. Physical evidence may have been lost.
The families of the four employees waited anxiously for news until Nov. 19, 1978. On that day Johnson County resident Fred Heger was walking along his heavily wooded property, located east of State Road 37 and south of Stones Crossing Road in White River Township, when he spotted two bodies in Burger Chef uniforms.
Heger called the police. They found two more bodies nearby.
Employees Daniel Davis, 16, and Ruth Shelton, 17, had both been shot execution-style.
Assistant Manager Jayne Friedt, 20, was stabbed in the chest by someone who had reached around from behind. The 5-inch blade had broken off inside her chest.
Employee Mark Flemmonds, 16, had been severely beaten from behind, possibly with a chain, although he died of asphyxiation from drowning in his own blood.
The murders were baffling for police as none of the victims seemingly did anything that would have caused their own deaths.
The arrangement of the bodies suggested that Friedt and Flemmonds may have tried to run when Davis and Shelton were shot, but the killers caught up to them. The site was secluded and wooded, suggesting that the killers were familiar with the area former Indiana State Police Detective Ken York told the Daily Journal in 2003.
Led by the Indiana State Police, dozens of officers from several agencies joined the investigation — including the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.
Law enforcement fielded several hundred tips from the public and looked at several suspects. Still, the trail went cold and the case has remained unsolved.
New documents
In February 2019, Indianapolis attorney Kevin Greenlee filed a request with the FBI asking for their case files on the murders. Greenlee represents the sister of one of the Burger Chef victims pro bono. He also co-hosts The Murder Sheet podcast with his wife, journalist Áine Cain.
Earlier this year, the FBI sent Greenlee redacted copies of their investigation files — well over 400 pages. He requested the files because he was frustrated by the lack of information released by ISP, the lead investigatory agency.
“I knew that the FBI files were out there, that they would likely have a great deal of information,” Greenlee said.
The FBI’s files reveal details about the investigation at its earliest point, as the agency was only involved for a few days when the employees were essentially still missing. Agents did a lot of work during the initial stages of the investigation, interviewing a number of employees, family members and possible witnesses, Cain said
For the podcast, Greenlee and Cain plan to go into detail about the new information revealed in the files. Among the details discussed will be a series of harassing phone calls one of the victims received before her murder and testimony from other employees who switched shifts at the last minute.
The files also detail concerns expressed by victim’s family members about who might have harmed their loved ones, possible workplace issues between the victims and other workers, and the bizarre disappearance and reappearance of Jane Friedt’s car, according to the podcasters.
Friedt’s car disappeared from the restaurant parking lot, later being found in the early morning hours after the abduction next to a park by the Speedway Police Department. This has always been a troubling aspect of the case, Cain said.
“We know that the car, based on its odometer, did not travel to the murder site, so it doesn’t really make sense where it’s found,” she said. “It kind of indicates that perhaps everyone was abducted in that car and then transferred to a secondary vehicle.”
The files also give Cain and Greenlee a chance to see what investigators’ early thoughts on the case were and what leads may have been forgotten. They plan to talk to some of the people mentioned in the FBI files to see if their stories have changed over the years, Cain said.
Hope for more documents
Greenlee believes the 414 pages released by the FBI represent the entirety of the agency’s files on the Burger Chef murders. Now he hopes the state police will consider releasing some of their own documents on the case. Both Greenlee and Cain believe the ultimate answer to the murders lies in those documents.
“The Indiana State Police has thousands and thousands of pages of documents on this case, which they are refusing to release and to share with the public,” he said. “They’ve only shared those documents with one podcaster. They haven’t shared them with the family members.”
In Greenlee’s view, releasing even redacted versions of the documents can help jog people’s memories. It can also help people come forward with information to finally have the murders solved, he said.
“I think at this late date, the chances of a successful prosecution are relatively slim,” Greenlee said. “But I think we can get answers and at least know what happened to those four kids.”
ISP didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether the agency would release documents by press time.
More than four decades later, the lack of answers on the case still impacts the victims’ families to this day, Cain said. It’s time for people who may know something to speak up and be honest about what they know, she said.
“These families aren’t getting any younger. They’ve waited so long for answers,” Cain said. “At this point, I feel like they’re mostly just interested in getting answers about what happened and knowing why this horrible thing happened to their loved ones.”
LEARN MORE
To read the FBI’s files on the Burger Chef murders, go to bit.ly/3YWW5ab.
To learn more about the Murder Sheet podcast and listen to their episodes about the FBI files, go to art19.com/shows/murder-sheet.
If anyone has information about the murders, they can contact the Indiana State Police District 52 Investigative Commander by calling 317-899-8577 or 1-800-852-8440. They can also visit the District 52 post at 8620 E. 21st St., Indianapolis, IN 46219.
