SPEEDWAY, Ind. (AP) — It has been 45 years since four young employees vanished from a Burger Chef restaurant in Speedway, Indiana. On Nov. 17, 1978, an off-duty coworker found the restaurant open in the early hours of the morning. Jayne Friedt, 20, Ruth Shelton, 17, Mark Flemmonds, 17, and Daniel Davis, 16, were nowhere to be found. Two days later, their bodies were discovered in a field in Johnson County.
This case remains one of Indiana’s most perplexing unsolved crimes. Despite years of speculation, no arrests have ever been made in the Burger Chef murders. At the time, no suspects were identified, and this case has gone cold for nearly five decades.
Burger Chef, a national fast-food chain headquartered in Indianapolis, was the scene of the crime. The workers were gone, and the cash register drawers were missing their money, leading authorities to believe the incident was a robbery gone wrong. Friedt’s car was also missing, but was later found abandoned nearby.
The brutal nature of the murders shocked the community. The bodies of Shelton and Davis had multiple gunshot wounds, while Friedt was found stabbed to death with the knife blade still lodged in her chest. Flemmonds had died of asphyxiation, possibly from running into a tree and knocking himself unconscious, which ultimately caused him to choke on his own blood.
One of the biggest challenges in solving this case has been the lack of a concrete suspect. However, detectives believe that a group of five individuals suspected in a string of fast-food restaurant robberies in the 1970s may be responsible for the Burger Chef murders. Unfortunately, the lack of hard evidence has made it difficult to prove their involvement in a court of law.
To this day, investigators continue to pursue any leads and hope that advancements in DNA and other forensic technologies will provide a breakthrough in solving this longstanding case. Both the victims’ families and law enforcement are determined to see justice served in this tragic and haunting crime. Despite the passage of time, the investigation remains active, with the hope that modern technology will bring closure and answers to this enduring mystery.