Late on the night of November 17, 1978, Speedway, Indiana teenager Brian Kring stopped by his workplace, the Burger Chef fast food restaurant, to visit with his friends and offer them help closing up for the night. But when he arrived, he found the restaurant empty.
The four employees working that night, 20-year-old Jayne Friedt, 16-year-old Daniel Davis, 16-year-old Mark Flemmonds, and 17-year-old Ruth Shelton were all gone, but the door was unlocked and all of the lights were still on.
Unable to reach the assistant manager, Jayne, by phone, Brian finally called the police. But when the police arrived, they were surprisingly cavalier. In their opinion, a group of irresponsible teens had taken the cash from the till and gone off for a night of fun.
Join us at the quiet end for our discussion of the 1978 Burger Chef Murders. The next day, the police would realize that they had made a big mistake. None of the employees arrived home and their parents were frantic, but the police had not bothered to treat the abandoned restaurant as a crime scene. Two days later, four dead bodies were discovered about 20 miles south of the scene. The young Burger Chef employees had been stabbed, shot, and bludgeoned to death. Now, forty-three years later, no one has been arrested for these murders.
The Indiana Burger Chef Murder Victims
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Sources:
American Crime Journal, “Forrester Confession”
https://www.insider.com/burger-chef-murders-unsolved-speedway-indiana
Indianapolis Monthly, “Next in Line: The Burger Chef Murders”
The Burger Chef Murders in Indiana, by Julie Young
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