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Last updated on Tuesday, November 19, 2013
(SPEEDWAY) - It’s a case that has baffled police for decades.
On November 17th, 2013, it will be 35 years since four young workers were kidnapped from the Speedway Burger Chef and killed. There were four victims and three different causes of death. The crime scene was wiped clean and the restaurant reopened the next day - a mistake that haunts the case to this day.
Despite countless leads and dead ends, cold case detective Sgt. Bill Vann still hopes to solve the crime.
"We need just a few more pieces of the puzzle and we hope the public can provide that to where we might get closure for the victims' families, " he says.
Just after 11 p.m. on Friday, November 17, 1978, four young employees of a Speedway, Indiana, Burger Chef restaurant located at 5725 Crawfordsville Road disappeared. They were kidnapped during what was believed to be a botched robbery.
The murdered bodies of Jayne Friedt, 20; Daniel Davis, 16; Mark Flemmonds, 16; and Ruth Ellen Shelton, 18, were found that Sunday afternoon over 20 miles away in the rural woods of Johnson County, Indiana.
Both Davis and Shelton had been shot execution-style numerous times. Friedt had been stabbed twice in the chest. The handle of the knife had broken off and was missing; the blade was later recovered during an autopsy.
Flemmonds had suffered a blunt force head injury, possibly from running into a tree while trying to escape. It was later determined that he had been bludgeoned prior to his death.
According 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 thirties. One man had a beard and the other was clean-shaven with light colored hair.
The case was never solved, despite thousands of hours of investigation and a Burger Chef offer of $25,000 for information that could lead to its resolution.
Anyone with information about the murders is asked to call Crimestoppers.
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