- Hi guys, how are you today? Happy Monday. My name is Bailey Sarian
and today is Monday which means it's Murder,
Mystery, and Makeup Monday. If you're new here,
every Monday I sit down, I talk about a true crime
story that's been on my noggin and I put on my makeup at the same time. If you like true crime,
if you like murder. If you like true crime
and you like makeup, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Every Monday, I'm here. New story. So today's story is unsolved and it takes place in Speedway, Indiana. If you are curious to know
which product I'm using, I list all the products in
the description box below. So don't forget to check that out. Okay, so today's story takes
place in Speedway, Indiana and it involves four young employees of this fast food joint
called Burger Chef. (laughing) I'm so sorry. (laughing) Oh my gosh. This is not appropriate. No, I'm not on drugs or anything. I was just having a conversation today, how I can't pronounce anything,
how embarrassing it is. (laughing) Oh man, I was laugh crying. Okay, back to the story. These four young employees worked at a local burger joint and
it was called Burger Chef. They just vanished. And then later, sadly, they were found, all four of them murdered
on November 17th, 1978. Four young people were closing
up a Burger Chef restaurant. We have Jayne Friedt, she was 20 years old and she was the assistant
manager on duty that night. We had Ruth Shelton, she was 17 years old. Daniel Davis, he was 16. And Mark Flemmonds, who was also 16. They were scheduled to stay a couple hours past closing and cleanup
and get things ready for the morning shift. The Burger Chef chain,
it doesn't exist anymore, but at the time it was an
Indianapolis-based company with about 600 restaurants nationally. And then in the early
1980s it was absorbed by Hardee's or Carl's Jr. Around midnight, one of them opened the back
door to take out the garbage. What happened next is
not even fully known. It's all speculation and
theories and stuff like that, but somebody opened the back door. That's what we know for sure. Sadly, none of the kids
made it out that night. So Jayne Friedt, she was 20 years old. She was described as a leader with a sense of humor and a heart of gold. Then we have Daniel Davis. He's 16 years old. He was described as a
talented photographer who made loved ones smile. We have Mark Flemmonds, also 16. He was described as friendly, selfless, with a good sense of style. Ruth Shelton. She was 17 years old. Some articles I read said
that she was 18 years old, so 17 or 18. She was described as
creative, honest, and kind, and with a love for music. So I mean, everyone involved
is just very young, right? I'm sure it's probably
some of their first jobs. My hair looks like sh, whatever. So at around midnight,
another employee went by the restaurant to visit the four and he realized that,
okay, no, one's around. Where is everybody? He goes and he checks like the back area and he sees that the backdoor
has been slightly left ajar. So the four employees that
were working, they're missing. The back door is open. He also notices that
there's money missing. There was roughly about $500
that was missing from the safe. So the police were called but the police didn't
take this case seriously. There's only $500 missing. That's it. Okay, backtrack. So the police were called
and they come out there and they see, okay, there's money missing. The police also found
two empty currency bags. They also saw that two women's
purses were left behind. Some of the employee's jackets
were left behind as well. And also Jayne, the
manager that was on duty, her 1974 Chevrolet Vega, that was left, I mean, that was missing as well. So police did not take this case seriously because there was only
$500 missing from the safe. And also because that there was no physical
sign of struggle at all. It just seemed like
walked out the back door and that was, that was it. The police thought that
this was petty embezzlement with the assumption that the
four missing employees stole the cash to go party that night. So the police thought this, even though that the two
purses were left behind, I mean, they assumed that
they just went out to party. Frustratingly enough, you'll
never guess what happens. Because it was seen as
like nothing happened, the next day the restaurant still has to, it still has to open, right? It's a business. So if you've worked like
retail or you worked, if you work, I'm sure maybe
one of your duties is to clean. So the next morning people
come in to work and they clean. And so they clean the back area and they clean the front area. They get it all ready for
just another day of business. And this is frustrating because
they essentially got rid of any evidence that may
have been left behind. But the next day people
started to maybe worry because nobody that was
scheduled to work that day that went missing, they didn't show up. That same day, they found
Jayne's car, Chevrolet Vega. It was parked on the street near the Speedway Police Station. It was only a short
drive from the restaurant but also it showed no signs of her. After her car was found, this is when people really started to worry a little bit more. So Speedway Police told the
media that it was, quote, "A very peculiar case." Media, meaning newspapers. There were no leads and neither they nor the employee's families
had received a ransom call, which I guess was weird at the time. I don't, I don't know. But for some reason that made it strange. So on a Sunday afternoon, November 19th, some people are out like in the woods. No, it's not like a wooded area, it was just kinda like a little trail, a little hiking trail. Some hikers came across all
four of the missing employees. Their bodies, sorry I didn't say that. They came across their bodies. Could you imagine just
on a nice little hike with your loved one and
you come across four kids? This area was over 20
miles from the Burger Chef. A 40 minute drive from the location. And it was right next
to like a high school. Daniel Davis and Ruth Shelton, they were found first. Both of them were shot
execution-style multiple times with a .38 caliber firearm. Jayne, she was found nearby. She had been stabbed in the chest. The handle of the knife was broken off. So it was just like the
blade itself was in her, but the handle was gone. It was missing, it was never located. The blade itself later
recovered during the autopsy. Lastly, Mark Flemmonds
was found 75 yards away. He suffered blunt force trauma to the head and they believe this is a result of running into something,
possibly a tree trunk. You see, what they think had happened was that Mark actually escaped. Like he somehow got free or
like got away from the people and he was making a run for it. And when he was making a run for it, they think that he must have like run into a tree or tree trunk hitting his head which then knocked him unconscious and then he kind of fell downhill. and then he choked on his own blood, which is so, like I'm mad
because this poor kid, he gets away. He's making a run for it to
be stopped by a tree trunk. It was later on determined that he was also hit
by like something else. So the attackers or the killers, they must have also like,
just to make sure he's dead, they beat him some more. Some real shitty people. Side note. I know I always add these. While doing like research into this story and stuff I could find, it's so hard, first of all, in general, to
find like credible resources. You know, the internet, it's
a black hole of just nonsense and you never know like if a website is giving
you accurate information or not for starters. I've been learning that the hard way. Secondly, on older cases
and maybe like cases that you don't hear about often, it's extremely difficult to
find information on the story. So like for this story, I couldn't find anything
about like their families. How did they find out? Did the police actually ever go and like try to get evidence
from the burger place? Like there was stuff
that was kind of missing that I couldn't find. Everything that I found came from an interview with
one of the police officers that was actually investigating this case. So I find him to be like a credible source because he actually
investigated this case. A general theory among authorities was that this was some
sort of robbery gone bad. One or more of the employees
might have recognized one of the killers or maybe
one of them put up a fight and the rest of the workers
had to be eliminated. There was a rumor that at least one of the victims had been
involved with drugs, possibly even selling marijuana
out of the restaurant. So they're thinking maybe
the dealer owed money and the supplier had to come collect. So finally, a witness comes forward. A 16 year old who was out that night said that they saw two suspicious looking men outside the restaurant
just before closing time. Let me put on these lashes. I'll be right back. When asked to describe
the two men physically, the witness said one of them had a beard and the other one had a clean shaven face. Lots of information to work off of. So police had several
persons of interest based off of those leads. So they just kind of
started questioning around. You gotta start somewhere, right? There was one man who was tracked to a bar on the West Side where this man, he was reportedly bragging about the murders saying
that he had been involved. He'd done it. Let me talk about it, yeah. The investigator on this case, he actually went to the bar off duty. He went undercover and met
with the guy who was bragging. He started playing pool with him and he could not get a confession
out of this guy though. So he tried his best. Police ended up bringing him downtown, the guy that was bragging at the bar. But the man, he ended up
passing a polygraph test and it just kind of cleared him. He didn't give any evidence
that he may have done it. A lot of the stuff wasn't
out to the public yet, like the knife not having a handle, how some of the others were found. So it was like they were asking kind of that only the killer would know. And he just, he didn't have anything. Waste of time. why would you brag about that? So then weeks ended up
turning into months, dry as a bone. Throughout 1979 and 1980,
newspapers would randomly report on this case and then
mention a new prime suspect. And it was usually somebody
who is a linked to a murder in like the town next door
or like a town close by. None of them ever led anywhere. March, 1981, Jayne, remember Jayne, her brother ended up being arrested and he was arrested for cocaine. Police started to question him thinking maybe he was involved. I mean, he ended up being
cleared, but for a minute like they were thinking maybe he knew more than he was leading on. I think they just didn't have anything so they were like, "You, you did it. Let me question you." So at that time they had
no confession from anybody. They had no suspects, no
physical evidence, nothing. The only thing they had
was the end of the knife. They didn't even find the
bullet like shell casings. They didn't even find that. Burger place had been cleaned. So there was nothing for
anybody to go off of. They had potential
suspects who were described to them, bearded and not bearded. So their options were just, I mean, it could be anybody, right? So time is going on. Years are going by. People are, I mean, there
are new crimes happening so of course this one just
keeps getting put farther and farther back on the
list of things to do. Lead investigator to this crime, he stayed on it. Like he found himself being fixated with the story. He wanted to find who
did it because I mean this was such a heinous crime and these people or whoever
is involved is just out there. And he was getting desperate. He reached out to psychics, okay. He reached out to learn
how to hypnotize people so he could get better
information from them. Not to hypnotize people
and get them to confess, more like get information from them. Like the people who actually
physically saw the killers, hypnotize them and hopefully like they would remember a
name, a license plate, what they were wearing, something. Anyway, so in 1984, 34 year old detective who had already been in
the force for 16 years, he had been assigned to assist
in the Burger Chef murders. And then he got a tip in November. It was a phone call. And it was from the Pendleton
Correctional Facility which this inmate, he wanted
to confess to the murders. So jailhouse confessions are a staple of criminal investigations. Inmates will overhear
fellow inmates talking about what they've done pretty much and then they will use that as leverage to get either less time
or maybe get something that they want. They kinda do a little like tradesy. A lot of the times, or a handful of times. Oh this lip is horrid. Anyways, so both of these investigators, they go to this jail and they talk to a guy named
Donald Wayne Forrester. He was 34 years old and
he had just been convicted of raping a woman. He'd been sentenced to 95 years in prison and was about to be
transferred as a sex offender. Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, it's said that nobody
wants to go to this prison and nobody wants to go to this prison because you will probably die. Especially if you've been accused
of some kind of sex crime. So he wanted to pretty much
confess to the murders, that way in trade, he wouldn't
have to go to that jail or that prison. So they did a background
check on this guy, Donald, and they see that he
actually grew up in the area that was pretty close to
where the murders took place. He, at the time, was living in Speedway and he had just gotten out of prison for another rape conviction. Think he has a problem. So they sit him down, they
interview him on camera. And this guy, Donald,
he ends up confessing to killing Davis and Shelton. So they start digging a little bit deeper and asking just little details
that only he would know. So the detectives actually
ended up putting this Donald guy into the back of their car and they go and they drive out to
where the bodies were found and Donald, the killer, he is able to show them exactly
where the bodies were at. And this was something that was
not technically made public, like where exactly everybody was at. And the he outlined precisely
where and in what position the bodies were found. According to these
detectives, he was spot on. Over the next two years, this inmate, Donald, the killer, he would call in and like talk to them and give them more and more information. According to Donald, Jayne's brother, the one who was arrested for cocaine, he owed money for a drug deal. And they came that night to the burger joint to
simply threaten Jayne. One of the other boys stepped
in to kinda like defend her. Then they start like fighting. And then they go out into the back, into like I guess it's a parking lot area. So they go into the back
and then they kind of, they start fighting with each other and he ends up falling
and hitting his head. And he hit his head on the
killer's fan, like on the bumper. So now the killers who came
simply to threaten Jayne, they're like, "Oh no, we
just killed somebody." So their thought process
because, because they're idiots. I don't, yeah. I mean, that's all we can really say. Their thought process was, "Well now we gotta kill all of them because they all know what just happened." They get into Jayne's car, they drive them out and
then they kill them. And again, this isn't a fact technically. This is just what Donald the inmate is telling the detectives. So Donald tells the detectives
that he shot two people but that there were three
other guys involved. The reason why the detective like heavily believes
this guy is because again, Donald the inmate, he knew
about the knife being in Jayne and the handle being broken. The murder weapon, the
gun, was never found, but Donald, the killer, I'm
just gonna keep saying that, he told him that he threw
the gun into the White River which was like right close by, and he threw it off of this bridge. So he takes the detectives to
the bridge and shows 'em like, yeah, I threw it like this. But when people went out to
like search the water out there, nothing was ever found. So then detectives go and they
question Donald's ex-wife. Now this ex wife was
really spilling the truth. She told the detectives that her and Donald were driving somewhere and they ended up pulling over. He said he needed to check something. She didn't really ask questions. I don't know. But they pulled over to the dirt road and he essentially took her in the car to where the bodies were found. He said he needed to
retrieve shell casings from shooting his gun out there. So she was like, "Okay, whatever." She sat in the car, he gets out, he goes into this wooded area and he picks up the shell
casings from his gun. So then they go home and then
the ex-wife tells detectives that he ended up flushing
them down the toilet that day. So then the detectives
go to the old house. They no longer live there,
somebody else lives there. They go to the house and they find out that the potty, what's it called? The bathroom, whatever,
is on a septic tank. So pretty much all of the, you know, shit, it gets
collected in this like thing, but it gets like collected essentially. And so they end up obtaining a warrant to dig up this septic tank. They end up going through
all this shit and stuff like, yeah, they go through it all. Go, not with their bare hands people. Okay, I'm sure they had
gloves on and stuff. They go through it all, right? And guess what? They found the shell casings of the .38 caliber that
said to be used by Donald. Like he wasn't lying about that story. It's kind of like
connecting the dots, right? You're thinking like, yeah, duh, like he obviously is telling the truth. So these detectives are
like, this is our guy. This has to be our guy. He knows things that
other people don't know. Just his story just seemed very legit. Now here's where shit went wrong. I don't, yeah. So on November 14th, 1986, somebody's dumb ass working
in the police department, they decided to release
information they had about this case and their
new suspect to the press. Once the press had
released this information, this freaked Donald out. He was afraid of retribution
from his associates. Donald recanted three days later, which means that Donald ended
up taking back everything he said, he said, "Actually,
no, I didn't do it. Sorry, I was lying." Losing his confession
obviously upset the detectives. Like, we were almost there. Why it hurt them is
because they couldn't get some final evidence that they needed. They had his confession on tape but it just said in the
document that I was reading, it said that they couldn't
get the final evidence that they needed. But to me like, if they got
him on camera confessing, isn't that all you really need? I don't know. But that's what it said. Okay, December 22nd is when
they, the police department, announced that Donald would
not be charged on this case and that the case has now
gone back to being cold. There is no statue of
limitations in Indiana but there is a tight limit
on law enforcement resources. Donald the killer. Well, guess what? He ended up dying in prison. 2006. That's fine, you can die Donald. But come on. We were almost there. I think the evidence that they didn't get was like the names of the
other guys, the other killers. I don't know, what took
'em so long though? They had two years. I don't know. One of the main
investigators on this case, I'll link the article down below. Like it was a whole interview
with him pretty much and he says like still
obsesses over this case because he knew he had the guy. And it's just really frustrating 'cause people constantly
say, well not constantly, but people will say that it's a cold case but really it's like they
had the guy, they had him. That would probably, that
would drive me insane. Like, I had him. I couldn't imagine what that would, that would fuck you up. So November and December of 2018 marked the 40 year anniversary. Is anniversary, that's not the right word. 40 year mark of this sad murders. Investigators released
a photo of the blade that was retrieved from Jayne hoping that it would
help bring leads forward. And that is the sad and awful story about the murders at Burger Chef. People need to shut
their dirty little mouths and not brag to the press
because shit like this can happen where things get fucked up. And that must be extremely frustrating but he did mention that there
were three others involved. And I'm wondering why nobody
has come forward about that. Feel so bad because like, you know it was probably some
of their like first jobs. They're just working. The whole thing's really sad. Let me know what you think
of this story down below. But other than that, I hope you have a really good day today. Make good choices and be safe out there and I'll be seeing you guys later. Bye bye.
