Criminology - Speedway

Episode Date: June 6, 2021

The town of Speedway, Indiana is known for racing with the Indianapolis Speedway being a huge attraction. But, in 1978, Speedway gained attention for a number of high-profile crimes. In September of that year, a serial bomber terrorized the area by detonating eight separate bombs. A month after the bombings, the murder of four young Burger Chef employees rocked the area. Known as the Burger Chef murders, Jayne Friedt, Daniel Davis, Mark Flemmonds, and Ruth Shelton were murder as they were closing up the restaurant. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss these crimes that occurred in Speedway in 1978. The police focused on a suspect in the Speedway bombings. But, the Burger Chef murders remain unsolved to this day. There are a slew of questions to be answered and just as many shady characters that have been linked in some way. Were drugs involved in the murders or was this a case of trying to scare someone into paying a debt that led to murder? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 162 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And I'm Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, what's going on with you, buddy? Not a whole lot. Just working here to get this episode out, excited. I know you're going away to CrimeCon. I'm doing it virtually.

So trying to get this work out of the way, and then we can relax a little bit and enjoy ourselves. Yeah, it's always, we have this. every year, right? Every year that we go to CrimeCon, all the work has to be done even further in advance than normal because you want, you don't want to have to worry about it while you're there because the episode's going to come out, you know, that weekend when you're away from home, you're away from your studio. So you want everything wrapped up, tied up with a bow so that there's no issues. We've got some shoutouts to give for Patreon. So let's do those. We had Doug Pergram.

Nancy Davidson, Kelly Hohner jumped up to our highest level, Stein Goldberg Logstead, Stephanie Ferruly, Catherine Olson, Deanna Pitts jumped out at our highest level, and Angie Hogue. So that's a lot of great new support and more

if we really appreciate it. Yeah, every week you say all those names and it's just, it's really moving how so many people are willing to support this show and we can't thank you enough for anyone that would like to support.

support criminology. You can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right. Moore, if it's time to jump into this episode, and this week we're heading to the town of Speedway, Indiana, home of the Indianapolis Speedway, and we're looking into the year 1978. At that time, there were just under 12,500 people living in Speedway, a planned community, entirely surrounded by Indianapolis. Speedway School District, Speedway School Town, had less than 2,000 students enrolled at any given time. Now, normally, Speedway was a pretty sleepy suburb. The town was actually planned around the Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400 auto races.

And most of the town's activity and livelihood revolves around racing. It's really what they're known for. But 1978 was a terrible year for Speedway, Indiana, and the town would become known for multiple high-profile crimes. Between September 1st and September 6th, 1978, there was a series of eight bombings throughout the town. On September 1st, three bombs placed in trash cans around Speedway, including the Speedway Shopping Center and the Speedway Motel, exploded, but luckily no one was injured. Authorities took the incidents very seriously, and a task force of over 100 people is quickly formed, including members of the Indiana State Police, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Three more bombs went off, including one of the Speedway Lane's bowling alley. But again, no one was injured. The seventh bomb actually went off underneath a police officer's car, but he was off duty and on sick leave at the time, so he was unscathed. A false bomb threat had been called in nearby earlier that day, in a diversionary tactic to allow access to the parked squad car. On September 6th, the final bomb was placed in the Speedway High School parking lot, just after high school football game. Vietnam War veteran Carl DeLong, just 39 years old at the time, approached a Speedway High School gym bag, and the bomb inside of it exploded. Rumors quickly spread that Carl kicked the bag, but the former Army Airborne Ranger exploded. The explosives expert didn't even have a chance to. The bombs were on timers.

Carl's right leg had to be amputated due to the injury sustained in the explosion, and his other leg and right hand were severely injured. His wife, Sandra, standing nearby, suffered a severed artery and sciatic nerve in her leg during the explosion as quickly as the bombing spree had started. It stopped. The owner of Northwest Instant Press Store, a print shop, became curious when a man came in dressed in a Department of Defense uniform, requesting copies of a military driver's license with his photo on it. The owner called police, who in turn contacted the United States Army due to their suspicions. On September 20, 1978, 27-year-old Brett Kimberlin was arrested by federal agents for Trump. trying to illegally obtain U.S. government credentials. The charges of illegally having a U.S. Defense Department,

special police insignia, as well as replicas of the presidential seal, were soon dropped. But authorities used their time looking into Kimberlin wisely. In a search of Kimberland's home and car, authorities found damning evidence tying him to the bombings, wiring similar to what was found in the explosive devices, lantern fuel, five types of ammunition, and a few of the unique mark-time timers used in the devices were found in Kimberland's 1970 Chevy Impala.

Investigators also found two cases of the water gel explosive, Tovex 200, which was used in the devices, and over 1,000 pounds of marijuana. The serial number on the Tovex 200 traced back to Brett Kimberlin, who had purchased it in 1975. Mark time appliance timers were only sold at one store in town, and employees there confirmed that Brett Kimberlin had indeed come into the store and purchased the timers. An eyewitness also claimed to have seen Kimberlin place a device in a trash can. The timers and the wire found in Kimberland's appellate perfectly matched those used in the devices,

according to the ATF. Investigators came to believe that the bombings were some sort of a diversion, away from the murder of 65-year-old Julia Seifers, who disapproved of her daughter Sandra's relationship with Kimberly, as well as the attention Kimberly paid Sandra's teenage daughter. Sandra was a colleague of Kimberlin at the Good Earth Cafe, but Julia was so disturbed by whatever she thought was going on between Kimberly and Sandra's daughter that she told her friends about it.

After arranging for her daughter and granddaughter to come live with her, she was shot outside her home on July 29, 1979. 67-year-old Fred Seifers, Julia's husband, identified a man named William Bowman, a close friend and drug trade associate of Kimberlin as the assailant. Fred Seifers died soon after, so the only eyewitness in Julia's murder could not assist in the investigation. or trial, and officially, her murder remains unsolved today.

Just months later, in February, 1979, Kimberland was arrested again on drug charges. Police in Texas discovered that he and associates had built an illegal landing strip in the desert as part of their drug running operation. On February 16, 1979, in the darkness, agents staked out the landing strip. A small plane was carrying 10,000 pounds of marijuana from Columbia, into the United States through Texas. Due to heavy fog that night, the crew of the plane had to push 50-pound boughs of marijuana out

so that the plane could land at a legitimate airport. Agents arrested nine men that night, including Brett Kimberlin and William Bowman. There was over a pound of marijuana on the floor of the plane, even though the actual product had all been pushed out during the flight. Less than two weeks later, William Bowman from Ohio was arrested in connection with Julius Seifers' murder. Authorities planned.

to break Bowman and get him to confess to Kimberland's role in Julia's murder. But on March 14, 1979, Fred Seifers died of terminal cancer, leaving the crime with no witnesses, and the charges against William Bowman were dropped. Brett Kimberlin went through three trials for his crimes. In the first 1980 trial, he was found guilty of impersonating a Department of Defense Security Guard and sentenced to 12 years in prison. But the jury could not agree on. the bombing charges. In June 1981, Kimberland's second trial was held and he was found guilty of a legal possession of explosives. In October of that year, after the third trial that lasted 53 days,

Brett Kimberland was convicted of the Speedway bombings. For all of his crimes, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He served 13 years during which time he claimed that he had sold marijuana to then United States Senator and vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle, when Quayle was just a law student in Indianapolis. When Dan Quill was up for re-election in 1992, Kimberlin's claim of selling him drugs received new attention, which Kimberland used to publicly claim that he was innocent of all of the Speedway bombings.

According to Brett Kimberland, the damning evidence all belonged to his late younger brother, Scott. In October 1980, 25-year-old Scott Kimberlin was found shot the death in a field near the Dayton Motorcycle Club in Dayton, Ohio. Authorities didn't link Scott to his brother Brett's criminal activities, but they had no idea why Scott, from Indiana, was found in Ohio. Carl DeLong, the most seriously injured in the Speedway bombings, took his own life on February 23, 1983, after years of pain and depression. Sandra DeLong was awarded a $1.6 million judgment in civil court for pain and suffering over her injury as well as for Carl's death. Since though it was a suicide, Carl most likely would not have taken his life had he not suffered the trauma of an explosion and subsequent severe injury and loss of quality of life. Kimberlin was released on parole in 1994.

But after he made literally zero effort to pay any of the amount awarded to Sandra, it was revoked in 1997. Kimberlin served just four more years in prison and was released in 2001. He was last known to be living in Maryland and has yet to pay a cent of the DeLonged judgment. Brett Kimberlin had a criminal history long before the Speedway bombings. Just after his high school graduation in 1973, he was convicted of felony perjury. After lying to a grand jury that was conducting a drug trafficking investigation, Kimberlin had testified that he had never sold LSD and served 21 days of a one-year sentence.

After this time, while still in his early 20s and years before the bombings, Kimberly was profiled by local newspapers as the owner of Good Earth Natural Foods and the Good Earth Cafe in the broad ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis. Authorities believe the cafe may have been a front for drug running or money laundering. It's believed that Julius Seifers knew something about Kimberland's illegal operation and planned to go to the authorities and make some kind of report. Whether she truly did plan to tell anyone about Kimberlin, if she knew anything at all is unknown. What is known is that the Speedway bombings interrupted the investigation into Julia's murder. It took up the resource of the local authorities and scared the town.

Early reports show that police believe this was by design. The bombings weren't only intended to delay or ruin the investigation into Julius Seifers' murder, but to scare the residents of Speedway into silence. Following the bombings, the town of Speedway was interested in turning the page and getting back to what it knew best, racing. But before long, another violent crime shook the town. Just over one month after the bombings, on Friday, November. 17th, 1978, the Burger Chef location on Crawford'sville Road was found empty, even though the

closing shift should have been there, taking care of the restaurant for the night. That burger chef location closed at 11 p.m. Around 12.15 a.m., a burger chef employee who was off drove past a restaurant and noticed that the lights were still on, even though it was long past closing time. He went to see if the night shift, his fellow friends and colleagues, needed any help closing up so that they could get home. But when he went inside, he found the restaurant was empty. There was no sign of any of the four employees who had worked the night shift. The safe was left open and the back door of the location had been left ajar. Two empty money bags and a roll of tape were on the floor near the safe.

The cash register still had over $100 worth of coins in them. The worker summoned police to the restaurant. The employees on the night shift were young. 20-year-old assistant manager Jane Freed had 16-year-old Daniel Davis and Mark Flemmons and 18-year-old Ruth Ellen Shelton working with her that night. Due to the young ages of the night shift staff, and there being no real signs of a struggle, police initially felt the entire group of workers had left together. just $581, which even today equates to less than $2,500, was taken from the safe.

The initial theory is that the mostly teenage staff took the money from the safe, shirked their responsibilities, and went out for a fun night. But Jane and Ruth Ellen had left their jackets and purses behind and would have had to have head out for a cold autumn night in Indiana without their stuff. So it seemed to authorities, like a simple case of employee embezzlement, and they really didn't take any photos of the scene, nor did they even cordon off any part of the building. In fact, the entire restaurant was cleaned by employees the next morning before opening for business as usual.

By that morning, there was still no sign of Jane, Ruth Ellen, Daniel, or Mark. Police began to receive reports from concerned family members. Investigators also found Jane's car. a 1974 Chevrolet Vega, around 4.30 a.m. parked in town. Some of the doors were locked and Jane was nowhere to be seen. The car was just a mile and a half south of the Burger Chef location on Crawford'sville Road, parked on West 15th Street. This was just around the corner from the Speedway Police Department and Leonard Park. It's a very simple route from Leonard Park to Interstate 4th,000.

Because none of the young employees had shown up yet, and Jane's car had been found discarded, police began to second-guess their original theory, and this led them down a new line of thinking, that the four young employees had been ambushed and abducted during their closing routine, perhaps as someone took out the trash through that back door. This was a robbery gone very wrong, in their opinion. The case of the missing employees was now being taken very seriously by investigators, who were able to lift a palm print from the trunk. trunk of James Vega, but at the time it was mostly useless because only fingerprints were kept in a

database. On Sunday afternoon, over a day since they were last seen alive, the bodies of Jane Freight, Ruth Ellen Shelton, Daniel Davis, and Mark Flemmons were found by a couple who lived nearby out on a walk. They were over 20 miles or about 40 minutes away from the Burger Chef location in a heavily wooded area of Johnson County, Indiana. All four of the employees were still wearing their Burger Chef uniforms. Daniel and Ruth Ellen found together next to a gravel path had both been shot multiple times in the back of the head and neck, execution style, with a 38 caliber gun.

They had each, according to investigators, laid down on the ground on their own and been shot in that position. Jane and Mark were found some distance away from Ruth and Daniel, but not near each other. Jane was about 75 yards away from the pair. She had been stabbed twice in the chest with a large hunting knife. The knife broke during the attack, and the handle was never found. But the four and a half inch blade was recovered during her autopsy. Mark had been bludgeoned, most likely by some kind of change.

but he had no broken bones from the beating. He was found laying on his back, and he died from drowning in his own blood. He was nearest to the main road nearer Creek, even further from Ruth and Daniel than Jane was. Some of them still had money in their pockets, and none of their watches or jewelry were stolen. If this had started out as a robbery, whoever was responsible had lost their focus, and had viciously. murdered four young people in cold blood. There are other wooded areas in and around Speedway, Indiana, closer to the Burger Chef restaurant.

And transporting four people can't be easy if they don't want to go with you. Investigators to this day wonder why the wooded area in Johnson County was chosen over other, more closer and convenient areas, closer to the Burger Chef restaurant. The killer or killers took a risk transporting the four victims so far away. Police knew that they had their hands full. They had recently dealt with the murder of Julius Seifers and eight explosions in the Speedway bombings, and now they had a cold-blooded mass killer of killers on their hands. News of the murders quickly circulated, and Speedway residents, just a month after the senseless bombings,

were now alarmed over senseless murders. So, Morph, did you have Burger Chef restaurants near you growing up? No, not on the East Coast. We never had any burger chefs that I know of. So I'm in Ohio, obviously right next to Indiana. And as a kid, I definitely remember Burger Chef. I remember their commercials. It seemed to me as though, and maybe it was just a Midwestern thing, but they were a pretty

good sized chain. I'm not exactly sure what happened to them. Most likely they probably got bought out by somebody like Burger King, but we used to eat there all the time when I was younger. Yeah, talking about some of these cases that we talked about. about we talk about some of these places that are no longer around bring back a lot of memories of when you're younger. So, you know, when we talk about Speedway, obviously there was some type of seedy underbelly of drug running and money trafficking in the area, which authorities were aware of. Police pondered whether the Burger Chef murders were connected to that underbelly.

They also needed to take a closer look at their own early response regarding the mishandling of, of the initial crime scene, and the fact that they brushed off the workers going missing from the beginning. There's no doubt that the department made some mistakes, and it would not be the last time that they made mistakes in this case. Police found a possible witness that helped them with their investigation into the murders. A young girl who worked the closing shift at the nearby Dunkin' Donuts and her boyfriend were outside of the burger chef around 11.30 p.m. on the night in question, and everything seemed

fine at the location. James Vega was still in the parking lot. The girl and her boyfriend sat outside of the Dunkin' Donuts, waiting for her father to pick her up. While they were waiting, two men, one with a heavy beard, and one clean-shaven, came up to them and asked them to provide their identification. Both teens refused, and the men warned them that the area wasn't safe, and that they needed to leave due to a high level of recent vandalism nearby. A sketch was made of each man from the witness accounts which were used to make more lifelike clay bus for other potential witnesses to view, but nothing really came from them. And I think it's pretty easy to say more that the residents of Greater Indianapolis and especially Speedway, they were on edge. I mean, after all, the bomber had not

yet been apprehended. And it was unknown whether the Burger Chef incident was related to the Speedway bombings. One of the bombs had gone off just across the street from the restaurant at a shopping center. Some believe that the clean-shaven man strongly resembled Brett Kimberland, who as we mentioned, was later found to have been the bomber. But investigators found no connection to the Burger Chef murders in the Speedway bombings. Burger Chef announced a $25,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest and an anonymous donor offered an additional 10,000 for information in the case. It was hoped that this $35,000 in reward money would elicit helpful tips. The problem is it didn't.

Police reconsidered the clues from the Burger Chef crime. Only Jane and Daniel drove to work that fateful night. Ruth and Mark got rides or walked. Jane's car was found parked near Leonard Park, which is also right next to the the police station. Daniel's car was parked on the side of the restaurant next to the Dunkin' Donuts, but Jane's car was blocked from view by the burger-suff location itself. This meant that at least five people, the victims and at least one killer, were shoved into a Chevy Vega. But five or more people crammed into a Vega would not be an easy task. It might draw attention. Police felt that

the group may have moved into another vehicle. One ear witness claimed that during the Johnny Carson Show, sometime between 11.35 p.m. and 1.m. a car door slam near Leonard Park. This was likely Jane's car door. Someone had either dropped it off at that location, or had corralled the four victims into another vehicle. Someone else heard gunshots in Johnson County at around 120 a.m. They could have made it back from Johnson County to park the Vega where it was found around 4 a.m. But it's much more likely it was immediately ditched on the way to a larger car, or that the larger car with the victims inside waited nearby for someone to ditched Jane's vehicle. especially with the timing of the car door slamming. When I was a kid in the 70s, my grandma had a Vega, and I remember rioting in it all these years later, and it was a very small car. So I can't imagine how four victims plus at least one killer were jammed into that. It must not have been a comfortable ride.

Yeah, it was by no means something like a Lincoln Continental or, you know, there was a lot big cars back in the 70s, right? The Vega was not one of them. In 1981, James Freit, James Breed, James' brother, was arrested on cocaine charges. Some who saw his mugshot thought he looked like the bearded man. Authorities immediately investigated him for any involvement in the Burger Chef murders, but it took them less than a week to decide that he was not involved. It turns out that he was deep in the drug trade. He and his two roommates were busted for selling $4,600 worth of cocaine, which would amount to about a $19,000 deal today.

And after police raided their home, they found more cocaine, marijuana, and quailutes. But police believed his associates known as the company ran their operation as if it were a business, including not murdering their rival business associates. For what it's worth, James denied involvement with the company, and his mother cut ties with him while he was being investigated. While James was in jail for the drug charges, another inmate, 24-year-old Alan Pruitt taunted him about the death of the sister. Pruitt said he had information about the murders

and told authorities that he saw two men, Tim Willoughby and Jeff Reed, kidnapped the four victims, using James Vega and an orange van. At the time, Pruitt thought they were drunk and heading to a party, even though he saw Jeffrey'd smash Mark's face into the van. The men loaded the four into the van and they took off. Pruitt said it was part of a larger robbery plan intended to include Dunkin' Donuts, burger chef, and a place that he called the Golden Eagle,

but wasn't sure what the business was actually called. In the plan, all three locations were supposed to be robbed that night. The Golden Eagle was on the logo of the American Inn Motel across the street from the Burger Chef and Dunkin' Donuts. And it turned out, the motel was robbed at 7.30 p.m. that same night. Also, on the night of the murders, during the Johnny Carson show, Alan Pruitt's mother claimed that he came home and told her there was heavy stuff happening at the Burger Chef. This was about an hour before the witness from Johnson County claimed to remember hearing gunshots. Could he have been tasked with ditching the Vega and getting to somewhere that he could be seen for an alibi for himself?

So to me, Morph, this is interesting because you have a person who comes forward to police offering up information. You know, most times you would think this is a good Samaritan, right? This is somebody who is doing something to try to help solve a case. But could it be? and I think it's proven that it has been possible that sometimes when somebody comes forward, they do so because they were part of whatever took place. And they're trying to throw police off. So when you ask the question, you know, could he have ditch the Vega and then got into a place

where he was able to establish an alibi, I think it's plausible. it's possible. Now, we're not saying that Alan Pruitt had anything to do with it, but I think you have to look at it from all of the different angles. Yeah, I can see if he was involved, that he would want to shape the narrative and take control of the story and say he witnessed all this stuff rather than he participated in this stuff. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door. and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water.

Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey, guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodontes.

We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a motherly touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. According to Pruitt, the day after the murders, Tim Willoughby and Jeff Reed went to the Dairy Queen and Avon about 20 minutes west of Speedway. The pair offered Pruitt a joint and a ride, which he accepted, in the back of the van. Tim's girlfriend, Marianne, seemed intoxicated. She was very upset. She was crying. While they smoked, Tim and Jeff revealed that they had seen Pruitt the night before.

And Marianne added that the men were going to kill her to keep her quiet about the Burger Chef crew. Pruitt claims that this was before he had even heard. The four employees were missing. Marianne said that the pair had tried to force her to shoot one of the young victims so that she would be guilty to and couldn't implicate them without giving herself up. Reed pulled the van over near a bridge that crossed Deer Creek and they all got out. Marianne told Pruitt that they were going to kill him and he ran.

He claimed to have heard one shot as he ran across the creek to a road where he hitchhiked home. However, Pruitt later claimed he made the entire thing up because he was angry at the police. Many believe that the crime would have taken three people. And I think police look at Pruitt as possibly lying and telling some truths at the same time. Instead of hanging out in a parking lot and seeing a kidnapping, he may have seen it while he participated in it. Now, he was never charged. and investigators began focusing on other suspects.

Timothy Willoughby and his girlfriend, Marianne Higginbotham, had actually been officially missing for almost six months at the time of the murders. They were last seen in June 1978. Mary Ann was found on a 55-gallon drum in 1979. She had been shot in the head. It was assumed that Timothy was also dead, and his body was never found. But a woman claimed she saw him at a dairy queen in Avon.

when she was moving into a new place on November 4, 1978. He told her he had a hideout and wouldn't be found. She also remembered that he always kept a large knife in his boot. But there's an informant who told police that two individuals killed Timothy to prevent him from talking to police about a car theft ring and in retaliation for attempted extortion over it. Just before his disappearance, Timothy had been arrested for attempted theft and arson after he stole a car and apparently lit it on fire.

Ronald C. Thomasick and James L. Kellam were actually arrested for the murders of Timothy and Marianne. But there was no evidence, and they never went to trial. So I think we have a lot going on here, right? Pruitt putting Timothy Willoughby into the Burger Chef murders, and then you have it coming out that he was officially missing for almost six months at the time of the murders. but for me it's Marianne found dead in a 55 gallon drum in 1979 shot in the head obviously that's a fact right that's not speculation we've been talking about a lot of speculation but this this girl this woman was actually murdered and you have to ask the question what did it have something to do directly with the burger chef murders or with all of these other things that we're talking about going on in and around the Speedway area. Yeah, the stuff Pruitt had to say was very interesting, but for it to have happened,

Timothy and Marianne, who were missing for a stretch of time, would have had to be alive and well to be in that van with him and to have these conversations that Pruitt claimed they had. And as you mentioned, just the craziness of all this stuff that seems to be going around. There's car thefts, different things like that. And the silencing of witnesses, it seems like, is a very real possibility, whether it's connected to the burger chef murders or not. It does seem as if someone wanted to silence this couple. And Timothy was never found.

He's assumed to be dead. And Marianne being found in that drum definitely lends credibility to the fact that someone wanted to cover tracks and eliminate witnesses. Well, and I think it's one of the very interesting aspects of these cases that we're talking about. You know, Speedway, Indiana, 1978, it sounds like there was a lot going on. And so you have some of these individuals who are suspected to kind of intersect some of the criminal activities going on at the time. it really kind of makes it harder, I would think, for police investigating the different crimes. I mean, if you just take the Burger Chef murders alone, all of these things that we're talking about,

claims that were made, it had to have thrown police for a loop and trying to figure out what was really going on. Yeah, I think they have to follow up all these different leads they get and see if there's any truth to them. And what better way to send an investigator down a rabbit hole than say two missing people were involved in the crime? That's really got to be hard to investigate. Yeah, because you're searching for these missing individuals. Well, eventually one of them turns up dead. Shot in the head and a 55-gallon drum, you're not going to be able to talk to Marianne Higginbotham. It's not going to happen. But at the same time, it's hard not to think that she was silenced for some reason, but what was the reason? Because there's so much going on, right? How do you pinpoint what she may

have known that someone thought she needed to be silenced? In 1984, police received a very important call. Donald Forrester, an inmate serving a 95-year prison sentence for rape, was scheduled to be transferred to general population at Indiana State Prison. This is not where you want to be, Morph. This is a notoriously ugly place to serve time, especially for those incarcerated as sex offenders. So Forrester called Marion County Sheriff's Detective Mel Wilsie and claimed that he had information about, about the Burger Chef murders, and he was willing to talk if he could stay at Pendleton correctional facility instead of Indiana State. So, you know, to me, right off the bat, this guy has an agenda. He does not want to go to Jen Pop at Indiana State because he knows

what's going to happen to him. And it's not going to be good. Now, you could make the argument that most people don't talk unless there's something in it for them. Yeah, this goes back to the Henry Lee Lucas confessing to any crime for strawberry milkshake. You know, I get you there, but I don't know. Seems to me like there's a big difference between getting an extra strawberry milkshake and staying out of gin pop when you are a known sex offender. But I get it, right? There's always something in it for someone.

Now, the problem I have with that is, okay, that could. force someone to come forward with real information, but at the same time, it can also cause people to make things up because they're so desperate, right? Think of this guy, Donald Forster, so desperate to stay out of Jen Pop because he doesn't want to face the repercussions. Could he be willing to say just about anything and everything to make that happen? Detective Woolsey brought Forster to Marion County for an interview, where he confessed to shooting Ruth and Daniel. At first, the detective was suspicious of the confession,

thinking kind of along the lines of the way I was thinking, you know, this may be yet another case of an inmate who is willing to make up something for some type of reward, but the detective was listening because it was possible. You know, Forrester lived in Speedway, was a known lifetime criminal, and wasn't behind bars at the time of the murders. His cousin, who was also his accomplice in the rape, he was convicted of,

lived just across the street from the Burger Chef location and worked down the street at McDonald's. Forrester had the attention of police and offered to take them to the scene of the Burger Chef murders. Police took Forrest's drop on his offer, and he led police to the crime scene and described accurately the location and the positions of the bodies. Importantly, Forster also knew that Jane had been stabbed

and that the knife handle had broken during the struggle. Police had not publicly released this information at the time. In fact, it wasn't until 40 years after the murders that police released the type of knife. Forster claimed that Jane's brother, James, had a drug debt, and that he and three others went to the burger chef that night to threaten Jane and scare her. thus scaring James into trying to pay his debt a little faster.

But Mark stood up for Jane. Outside of the Burger Chef restaurant, a fight broke out between Forrester, his associates, and Mark Flemmons. During the fight, Mark fell in his head on the bumper of a car and was so hurt that Forrester and his associates thought he was dead or soon would be, and they panicked. According to Forrester, instead of robbery gone wrong, this quadruple homicide was actually a threat, and the sending of a message gone wrong. Detective Willsey also interviewed Forrester's wife, who recalled that in the days after the Burger Chef murders, Forrester drove with her in the car and stopped at a very wooded area.

He got out of the car to search for spent shell casings, which he drove home with and flushed down the toilet into their septic tank. Detective Woolsey managed to get a warrant to search the septic tank, though Forster didn't own the whole. home anymore, and actually they did find multiple spent shell casings, according to the Indianapolis star, the casings matched the bullets that killed Ruth and Daniel. While everything seemed to line up with Forster and his story, something scared him, or at least made him change his mind. He later claimed his confession was coerced, and he were candid,

professing his innocence. This change of heart came just three days after someone from the sheriff's office leaked the details of Forrester's cooperation with authorities. He would never talk about the Burger Chef murders again, and he can't now. He died in prison in 2006 from cancer. In the time between his recanted confession and his death, investors couldn't build a solid enough case against Forrester and his associates, and Marion County prosecutor Stephen Goldsmith officially announced that Forster wouldn't be charged with the murders. So it seems to me more if that Forrester was ready and willing to talk, you know, to make some type of deal to stay out of gin pop. And then something came along possibly that scared him even more than going to general population.

Now, I don't know what that is, but I can speculate. You know, there are a number of things that someone could scare you with that might be even worse than what you would experience in gen pop at Indiana State. Yeah, maybe a threat against your loved ones. You know, we've seen, we've talked about people already that seem to have been eliminated to cover something up. So he might have believed that they wouldn't hesitate to kill his family. Yeah, absolutely right.

I mean, I think the one thing that really leaves little doubt is that there were a lot of strange criminal activities. maybe even some conspiracies going on in Speedway at the time of these cases. And there does seem to be a little bit of truth to Forrester's statement that they thought Mark was dead or would die because if he had just been in a different position, his injuries would not have killed him. His own blood in which he drowned may have run out of his mouth. Whoever killed him left him for dead, even though, they had a knife and a gun, they didn't use it on him. They obviously thought that he was dead or

dying. Interestingly, Donald Forrester's name was sent to an Indianapolis Star reporter in 1984 by an inmate. The tipster claimed that Forrester was one of two men involved in the Burger Chef murders, but police had already cleared the other man mentioned. Police chased another lead. there was a group of at least five men robbing fast food joints, including several burger chefs in the Speedway in Indianapolis areas. It was believed that one had a wife or girlfriend who worked at Burger Chef, accidentally helping thieves learn the layouts and protocols, explaining why so many more burger chefs were hit over other fast food places.

Only two of these men are still alive, and one is cooperated by giving his DNA. It's believed that Forrester was part of the ring. Some believe that Donald Forrester is the bearded man, but other sources say that the bearded man was someone named S.W. Wilkins, another man who was believed to be part of the robbery ring. Wilkins was said to work near the Plainfield Burger Chef, and he worked hours that would have seen him often stopping by the restaurant while Jane Freight was working. Wilkins died of a heart attack years after the murders. There is also a man named David Cathcart that police looked into. Cathcart bragged about being part of the group responsible for the murders while he was out drinking in Greenwood, just half an hour south of Speedway. This bragging was in between the time the four went missing and when they were found.

But in 1983, he took his own life. It's believed he was also part of the robbery ring. Two other men in the ring, John Defabaw and Timothy Piccioni were eventually, arrested for several robberies of fast food restaurants and gas stations. Defabaa owned a 38 caliber gun, but they were apparently cleared after passing polygraph tests, but many people believe that they were offered some kind of a deal. The two confessed to multiple robberies, but were not prosecuted, leading to closed cases and no time served. John Defa Ball was later murdered. In the spring of 2018, District Investigative Commander, First Sergeant, Bill Dalton, took over the investigation.

According to him, the Burger Chef Killer or Killers made a huge mistake and actually left something that can be connected back to them at the crime scene. He and others in the media refer to it as Item 8063, but it's never been publicly explained what this item is or how it links back to the killer or killers. So, Morph, when you think about it, you know, a lot of this sounds like, like kind of a far-fetched movie plot. There's a robbery ring, a car theft ring, multiple murders besides the ones that we're talking about. And obviously, we can't forget the earlier bombings. There was no shortage of crime in Speedway and a seemingly endless list of shady characters.

There was even a man who was pulled over for erratic driving soon after the abduction at the burger chef took place. The man had a loaded 38 in his car. So he put it in a burger chef cup and threw it out the window. He had been convicted of armed robbery and lived downstairs in Mark Fleming's apartment complex. None of the reports named this man, but many are suspicious that he was involved in the murders. He had the right caliber weapon used in the murders and was driving erratically.

and his first thought was to get rid of the weapon. One odd part of that mysterious night that many think is important is that Daniel and Mark weren't even supposed to be there that night, and Jane had only recently started working there. It's also been reported that Mark and Jane didn't seem to want to go to work that night, as if they knew something was going to happen. It's important to note that if Alan Pruitt was waiting outside the Dunkin' Donuts and Burger Chef, because he did know in advance something was going to happen,

could the workers have known too? But due to the nature of how they knew or what they were involved in, they couldn't ask anyone for help. And more if I think that's a legitimate question worth asking and worth looking into, Daniel had called his parents to ask if he could stay until closing rather than leaving at the end of his shift. According to her boyfriend, Jane had seemed depressed, which was very unlike her.

Jane had worked at the Plainfield Burger Chef location until just before the murders. Mark was covering someone else's shift, but had tried to get someone else to cover the shift. Mark was seen by a witness earlier in the day at a local hangout with his head down on a table crime. He didn't want to go into work that night. So, you know, you have all these questions. Did Mark have to cover a shift for someone who, who was too scared to show up to work that night, James Freight took his son Dutch to the burger chef earlier in the evening.

Dutch remember seeing Mark doing karate, practicing self-defense moves. Now, that could be absolutely normal for a teenage boy, but you could also ask the question, was Mark expecting a problem? Many speculate that one or all of the young employees were using the burger chef location as a way.

to sell marijuana. Maybe the killer killers surprised the crew, entering the back door, which they left open. A second employee came by after midnight, after the first off-duty employee had stopped by. Reportedly, when he showed up after 1215 and the first off-duty employee who showed up told him he had called the police, this second employee ran from the scene. People online often comment that this co-worker drove a van, an orange van, leading many to speculate that was one of the killers Pruitt saw returning to the scene. And others think that either he may have known or been afraid of the killer, killers, or he was up to something, perhaps drugs or drug dealing, and that he didn't want to be around when the police showed up. But the two men Pruitt claims to have

seen were named, and the second employee has not been named. Many people focus on the fact that two employees who were off duty decided to stop by the back of the location after midnight, which may lend credence to the location being used as something other than just a burger restaurant after closing. If this was really happening, there may have been more money in the safe than just the burger chef profits. There could have been profits from whatever the young employees were up to. If this was true, it could change everything. It would no longer be just $500. Dutch, Jane's nephew, recalls that his aunt was allergic to marijuana.

So he doubts that she would have been involved in any way in the drug trade. I think it's worth pointing out that there's no evidence, nothing publicly stated by police, that any of the employees were involved in any illegal activities in the burger chef. And I think that's a lot of stuff that comes from online theories. Yeah, Morif, I think that's an important. point to make, right? And a lot of these cases that we talk about, we are offering up what the online speculation is. Not that it's verified, not that we even believe it, but this is what, you know, many people speculate because I think in cases like this, you have to throw out everything.

But the fact that police don't believe that is very important. In 2007, the palm print on James Vega finally was matched to someone. It belonged to the friend of Mark Fleming's older brother. He had a very minor criminal record, and he did take and pass a polygraph test, and didn't seem to fit the bill during an interview, so investigators moved on from him as a suspect. Many investigators believe that Forster's story was accurate, and then the murders played out the way that he recounted,

although they can't prove it, and it hasn't gotten to court. But some investigators also have their own suspect that they believe is truly responsible. In January 2015, Jake Query noticed that Mark Fleming's had no headstone because his family couldn't afford one. Jake tweeted about it and was able to raise enough money to get Mark a proper headstone. On November 10, 2018, just in time for the 40th anniversary of their murders, a dedication ceremony revealed four plaques, one for each Burger Chef victim, placed in Leonard Park and Speedway. There is also a memorial bench there with the inscription dedicated to the family and friends of Ruth, Jane, Mark, and Daniel. Sergeant Bill Dalton, who has been in charge of the case since 2018, allowed members of the media to see the Burger Chef case files without permission from his superiors,

which could have seriously compromised the integrity of the case. It also brought unwanted attention on the department. Despite this, they continue to work the case. If you have information about the Burger Chef murders, you can call Indiana Crime Stoppers at 317 262 tips or the Indiana State Police at 317 899-8808. So morph as we wrap up this episode, you know, a lot of things, right, going on in Speedway back in the 1978 time frame.

You got the bombings, which we talked about in the beginning of the episode. And then you have the Burger Chef murders, which is, you know, a pretty well-known, infamous unsolved case. And then you have all the other stuff that we talked about involving, you know, possible drug rings, car theft rings, just, uh, a number of shady characters. You know, I can see why these would be tough cases to solve for investigators because it seemed like there was a number of bad individuals running around doing bad stuff.

Yeah, I think we touched on it. These are all different things that the police have to spend time researching and looking into and a lot of possible rabbit holes. And I think we mentioned it sounds like the script from some kind of, crime movie or some kind of mystery. I think the hard job is to figure out what's speculation and what's fact. Yeah, I think that's the issue in a lot of these unsolved cases, right? You and I talk about online speculation quite a bit because it's out there.

You can't really ignore it. You know, I think about the fact that four young people lost their lives. And then there's kind of this cloud. that later develops about whether these were just hardworking burger chef employees or whether they were doing something illicit on the side after hours. Well, you know, that can't be easy for the family to hear. And like we said, there's no proof of that. But when you research this case, it comes up a lot.

It's speculated on quite a bit. police were fortunate enough to crack the bombings and bring that individual to justice. And hopefully they can do the same thing somehow with the burger shop murders. Yeah. So a little bit different episode for us, right? We've got a solved case. We've got an unsolved case wrapped up in one episode. But, you know, it kind of made sense because we're in the same area.

We're in the same time frame. And there is some speculation that. possibly there's some crossover there. Now, I think police have kind of debunked some of it, but with these unsolved cases, you just, you don't know. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research assistants in this episode. As always, if you love the show, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends, word of mouth, about the criminology podcast, really goes a long way.

If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast, discussion, and fans. So more if that is it for our episode that we're calling Speedway, because it entails so many different aspects of crimes that happened in Speedway in 1978, at the time that this episode comes out, I'll be at CrimeCon. You'll be doing CrimeCon. You'll be doing CrimeCon. virtually. Yeah, hopefully people will take a little break from their crime con activities and listen to this

episode. Well, it'll be over, right? It'll be over for the night by the time our episode comes out. But yeah, we're all looking forward to it. And I'm sure we'll have some stories to talk about in next week's episode. But we will be back with everyone next week with a brand new episode of criminology. So for Mike. And more of...

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