A Fast‑Food Closing Shift That Never Finished
On Friday night, November 17, 1978, four young employees worked the closing shift at a Burger Chef restaurant in Speedway, Indiana, just outside Indianapolis.
Assistant manager Jayne Friedt, 20, and crew members Daniel Davis, 16, Ruth Ellen Shelton, 17, and Mark Flemmonds, 16, were scheduled to lock up around 11 p.m., clean the store, and go home like any other night.
Just after midnight, another teenage coworker swung by the restaurant to help close.
The lights were still on and the back door was ajar — but inside, the place was empty, the safe was open, and the cash‑register drawers lay on the floor.
At first, police treated it as a likely employee theft or joyride: about $581 was missing from the safe, and there were no obvious signs of a struggle.
By Sunday, when all four workers were found dead in a wooded clearing 20 miles away, that assumption would look like a catastrophic mistake.
Case Snapshot
- Location (restaurant): Burger Chef, 5725 Crawfordsville Road, Speedway, Indiana
- Location (bodies): Wooded area off a rural lane in Johnson County, about 20 miles south‑southwest of the restaurant
- Date: Night of November 17–18, 1978 (disappearance); bodies found November 19, 1978
Victims
- Jayne Friedt, 20 – assistant manager
- Ruth Ellen Shelton, 17
- Daniel “Danny” Davis, 16
- Mark Flemmonds, 16
All four were last seen alive at the Burger Chef restaurant that Friday night.
Scene at the restaurant
- Safe open, about $581 missing in cash.
- Cash‑register drawers on the floor.
- Back door partly open, lights left on.
- No visible blood or obvious signs of a violent fight.
- Sheltons’ and Friedt’s jackets and purses still inside the store, along with coins worth about $100 left behind.
Bodies in the woods
- Davis and Shelton: shot multiple times with a .38‑caliber handgun.
- Friedt: stabbed twice in the chest; knife handle missing, blade recovered from the wound.
- Flemmonds: beaten and likely choked; cause of death listed as asphyxiation after blunt‑force injuries, possibly from a chain.
Status
- Case remains unsolved; no one has ever been convicted of the murders.
- Investigators believe a fast‑food robbery crew from the area is likely responsible, but lack enough physical evidence to charge surviving suspects.
A Crime Scene Treated Like a Cleanup Job
When Speedway police first saw the restaurant, they didn’t lock it down as a homicide scene.
They assumed the four young employees had stolen the missing $581 and gone off to party, despite the fact that jackets, purses, and other personal items were still on site.
The next morning, in an effort to reopen quickly, officers allowed staff and corporate cleaners to get the store ready for business:
- Surfaces were wiped down.
- Trash was removed.
- The floor was cleaned and equipment reset for the lunch rush.
No photographs were taken of the original layout of the scene.
There was no systematic fingerprint dusting or evidence collection before the cleaning.
By the time detectives fully realized that this might be a robbery‑kidnapping, the Burger Chef had already been scrubbed and re‑opened.
Former Speedway Police Chief Buddy Ellwanger later admitted, “We screwed it up from the beginning.”
This early misstep likely erased trace evidence — fingerprints, shoe prints, drag marks — that could have helped identify the kidnappers.
The Bodies in Johnson County
Two days after the disappearance, on Sunday, November 19, hikers discovered four bodies in a rural clearing in Johnson County.
All four victims were still wearing their Burger Chef uniforms.
The arrangements and injuries suggested a chaotic, possibly panicked killing:
- Davis and Shelton were found shot, execution‑style, with a .38‑caliber revolver.
- Friedt had been stabbed twice; the knife handle was gone, but the blade remained lodged in her chest.
- Flemmonds appeared to have suffered blunt‑force trauma and likely died from asphyxiation, possibly from being beaten and then choking on his own blood or swelling.
Money and watches were still on some of the bodies, and about $100 in coins had been left behind at the restaurant, suggesting the motive was more complicated than simple robbery.
Investigators from multiple agencies descended on the clearing, but here too, procedural mistakes crept in:
vehicles drove through parts of the area, and some potential evidence may have been disturbed before the scene was fully documented.
Robbery Crew, Recognition, and a Failed Confession
Over time, detectives leaned toward a theory involving a robbery crew:
- That summer and fall, there had been a series of fast‑food robberies around Indianapolis.
- The Burger Chef case fit the pattern — except for the abduction and murders.
One working theory:
- The robbers came in near closing intending a quick holdup.
- One or more of the employees recognized a robber or noticed something identifying.
- To avoid being identified later, the attackers decided to abduct all four and kill them elsewhere.
In 1986, an inmate named Donald Forrester came forward with a detailed confession:
- He described his role in the crime, named accomplices, and gave specific details about the murder weapons and the Johnson County site.
- He led detectives to a septic tank where they recovered .38‑caliber shell casings that some investigators thought might match the shootings.
Forrester later recanted, and he failed polygraph tests.
Internal disagreements followed: some detectives believed his story fit too many details to ignore; others felt he was manipulating them for better prison conditions or attention.
Ultimately, no charges were filed based on his statements, and no one he named has been successfully prosecuted in connection with the murders.
Leads, FOIA Files, and a Cold Case That Won’t Die
Decades after 1978, the Burger Chef case continues to attract investigators, journalists, and podcasters.
Key threads include:
- FBI files obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, revealing investigative notes, suspect lists, and internal debates over witnesses and informants.
- Re‑analysis of physical evidence, such as a palm print found on Friedt’s car and ballistic traces from the Johnson County scene.
- Ongoing interest in the specific robbery crews known to be active in Indianapolis fast‑food holdups in 1978.
On major anniversaries, Indiana State Police have released images like the knife blade recovered from Friedt’s chest, hoping someone recognizes the weapon or remembers who carried such a blade back then.
Families of the victims — like Theresa Jefferies, Ruth Ellen Shelton’s sister — continue to speak publicly, pushing for anyone with long‑buried knowledge to come forward.
Detectives say they still believe one or more people in Indiana know exactly what happened that night and have chosen to stay silent.
Why This Case Is on True Crime Maps
The Burger Chef murders are anchored to two main locations:
- The Speedway Burger Chef on Crawfordsville Road, a typical suburban fast‑food restaurant where customers ordered burgers and fries the night four teens were taken.
- The Johnson County clearing 20 miles away, where their bodies were found, killed in three different ways and left in the woods.
On True Crime Maps, this pin marks a chain‑restaurant address that could be anywhere in America — fluorescent lights, fryers, closing shifts.
It’s a retail‑setting cold case with all the chilling contrasts:
- A small amount of missing money.
- A crime scene wiped clean and reopened before anyone realized what they had.
- Four teenagers who went to work and never came home.
When you click this pin, you’re seeing the straight line between a brightly lit fast‑food counter and a dark clearing in the trees — and an investigation that, even after decades, still hasn’t named a killer in court.
