Burger Chef murders
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On the night of Friday November 17, 1978 just after 11:00; four young employees of a Speedway, Indiana Burger Chef restaurant located at 5725 N. Crawfordsville Road went missing. They were kidnapped during what was believed to be a botched robbery. The murdered bodies of Jayne Friedt, Daniel Davis, Mark Flemmonds, and Ruth Ellen Shelton were found that Sunday afternoon over 20 miles away in a rural Johnson County, Indiana woods. Daniel Davis and Ruth Ellen Shelton had been shot multiple times execution-style. Jayne Friedt had been stabbed twice in the chest. The handle of the knife had broken off and was missing; the blade was recovered at autopsy. Mark Flemmonds had suffered a blunt force head injury, possibly from running into a tree while trying to escape. It is later determined that he had been beaten prior to his death.
Acording to a 16-year-old eyewitness, two suspicious men were in a car outside the Burger Chef just before closing on Friday night. Both were white and in their 30’s. One man had a beard and the other was clean-shaven with light colored hair. .[1]
What followed was a flawed investigation, sparse evidence, and ultimately a case that went completely cold. To this day, it remains arguably the most notorious unsolved crime in Indianapolis history.
