Going West: True Crime - Gitchie Manitou Murders // 354

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

In November of 1973, five teenage friends were attacked while they sat around a campfire at a local state reserve. After killing four of them, the final girl was taken into a van before being dropped off at home, able to share her story with the police in hopes of catching the monsters behind it all. This is the story of Sandra Cheskey, Roger Essem, Stewart Baade, Dana Baade, and Michael Hadrath. Also known as Gitchie Girl, and the Gitchie Manitou Murders. BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/395258 2. Sioux City Journal: https://www.newspapers.com/image/497248567/?terms=gitchie%20girl&match=1 3. Kingsport Times:  4. Des Moines Register: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime/1/01/01/sole-survivor-of-brutal-1973-slayings-finds-strength-to-tell-her-story/3726397/ 5. The Holland Evening Sentinel: https://www.newspapers.com/image/11889310/?terms=gitchie%20manitou%20murders&match=1 6. No One Can Hear You Scream: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.1832f18f-dfdf-4b3f-ba26-3e7d7bb7b24d?ref_=imdbref_tt_wbr_ovf__pvt_aiv&tag=imdbtag_tt_wbr_ovf__pvt_aiv-20 7. Argus-Leader: https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/crime/2021/11/16/gitchie-manitou-murders-1973-survivor-sandra-cheskey-fryer-brothers-south-dakota-iowa/8637229002/ 8. The Cinemaholic: https://thecinemaholic.com/where-are-allen-david-and-james-fryer-now/ 9. Argus-Leader: https://www.newspapers.com/image/238916630/?terms=%22michael%20hadrath%22&match=1 10. Murderpedia: https://murderpedia.org/male.F/f/fryer-brothers.htm 11. Argus-Leader: https://argusleader.newspapers.com/image/238916994/?clipping_id=48458612&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjIzODkxNjk5NCwiaWF0IjoxNjk4MTk1NjY4LCJleHAiOjE2OTgyODIwNjh9.V2kgk_9wvFxXqbh9tu2OrYcId4Vr0BfWVUtY-MwNpUU 12. Argus-Leader: https://www.newspapers.com/image/239091110/?terms=allen%20fryer%20escape&match=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody, thank you so much for tuning in and big thanks to Amber for recommending today's case. This case has a survivor in it which I think we've only done one other time on the show which was very recently. Yeah, we don't usually do survivor stories.

Yeah, it is nice to see that and this particular survivor has been very vocal about what happened to her and it really just adds a totally different element to the story when it can be told by somebody who is actually there and just an innocent and innocent person amongst the chaos. Oh, absolutely, you know, we cover so many cases where obviously the victim cannot speak for themselves, so it's great to be able to tell and share this story today. Also, I just wanted to mention that if you do have any recommendations for this show, please email us at goingwestpodcast.gmail.com. That's the best place to do it. Yeah, a lot of people still do it on social media, which I totally get, but we cannot get to all of our messages so we are only checking emails.

So if you have a case, going westpodcast.gmail.com, that is the place to do it. We have hundreds on our list right now, but hopefully we will get to them all. Unfortunately, there is not a shortage of horrible stories out there. So if you do have something that's local to you or that you're really interested in

and you wanna hear Heath and I dive into, send it over. Also welcome to the holiday season. It's, I feel like it's like right the day after Halloween, it just kicks right in, doesn't it? I'm, thank God. Yeah, literally we're driving down Vinturable of Art here in LA, and there's already billboards for Christmas movies. Yeah, a really good time of year to cozy up and listen to your favorite podcast. Okay, going west to crime. Podcast! AKA going west to crime!

Alright guys, without further ado, this is episode 354 of Going West, so let's get into it! ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ � In November of 1973, five teenage friends were attacked while they sat around a campfire at a local state reserve. After killing four of them, the final girl was taken into a van before being dropped off at home, able to share her story with the police in hopes of catching the monsters behind it all. This is the story of Sandra Chesky, Roger S.M., Stewart Beatty, Dana Beatty and Michael Gitchi Girl and the Gitchi Manitou State Preserve is a 91-acre nature-preserved nestled right on the border of Iowa and South Dakota. Though technically located in the northwestern corner of Iowa, the preserve sits on the state line of South Dakota about 20 minutes outside of the city of Sioux Falls, and the name itself comes from a

Sioux phrase meaning great spirit. Though the park is a magnet for hikers and hunters, it also attracts its fair share of teenagers that are looking for a cozy, discreet place to host a party. Bill had Wrath, who is the older brother of one of the victims we're going to be talking about today, remembered quote, I was out there myself at one time or another when there was probably around a hundred other kids out there. There were a lot of parties at that place, a lot of beer parties. That's basically my hometown, that's all we did is go out into the woods and drink beer. Yeah, and we see this a lot as well when there's not that much to do

or when you're a teenager. When you live in rural parts of the US, you go to the woods. And the Gitchie Manitou State Preserve was no different, or at least it wasn't before it became the site of an infamous slang, rendering locals to believe that the property was haunted. On the evening of Saturday, November 17, 1973, before winter blanketed the area in Frost and Snow, five friends headed to the preserve for what was supposed to be a fun night together. 18-year-old Stuart Bady agreed to drive the group in his blue Chevrolet van so they'd have a ride out there, and he decided to stay and hang out. Now Stuart was a senior at Washington High School right there in Sioux Falls and was very well liked by students and teachers alike, remembered as helpful, kind, and respectful.

He came from a large family of seven kids and brought along his younger brother Dana who was 14 at the time. Also joining them was Michael Hadrath, who was a 15-year-old sophomore, who met Stewart through school. And Michael Siblings remember him as a kind and attentive brother who was always there for them. Now rounding out the usual crew was 17-year-old Roger S.M., who, like the baby brothers, was one of seven children. Roger frequented Gitchie Manitou and especially loved to camp, and his mom later said,

quote, Roger loved the outdoors. The boys were very good friends. Had been all through school. Now, despite their age gaps, the four boys were very close. The baby's brother, Leland, recalled, quote, They were kids that pretty much kept to themselves. There were bullies back then too, so it was the four of them that hung out by themselves, minded their own business. Michael's sister Lynette echoed this by saying quote, They were good kids.

But that night was a little bit different, because one of them was bringing a date. So Roger had recently started dating 13-year-old Sandra Chesky, who was still new to the area having moved with her family to Sioux Falls just the year prior, with Roger being her first official boyfriend. So that November night, Stuart stopped at Sandra's house to pick her up and then the five of them headed to a secluded campsite in Gitchie, Manitou. Just planning to light up a bonfire, play some guitar, and share a joint or two. Sounds fun.

Right, so it should have been a really nice routine Saturday night. But early the following morning, a couple out for a drive stumbled upon a gruesome discovery. On the morning of Sunday, November 18, 1973, a local couple was out test driving a new car through the back roads of the park and noticed something large and stagnant in the grass. Cautiously getting out, the driver approached and spotted three bloodied, motionless bodies lying face down in the tall grass. So at this point they are freaked out, they race out of the park to report the scene, and soon the lush, quiet wildlife of Gitchi Manitou was home to the most disturbing crime that that area had ever seen.

Within hours, the surrounding towns in both Iowa and South Dakota were notified of the news of this brutal slaying. So it goes without saying that the massive shock of this rolled through the quiet community quickly, which normally didn't see crimes of this magnitude. There was no car at the sight of the body, so police sent out an all-point bulletin for Stuart's dark blue Chevrolet van, which was registered to his mom Marion, because they believe that the car was stolen by the perpetrators.

The victims were positively identified by the police using their wallets and ID cards, which were still in their pockets. Stuart Bady, Dana Bady, and Michael Hadrath had been left face down on the ground, where they were spotted by the passing motorist. Blood dotted the ground around them, and it appeared from the tracks in the grass that they had been shot elsewhere before their bodies were dragged to their final resting places and left in a ditch on the Iowa side. A short distance away was the abandoned fire pit in campsite, still arranged for the gathering the night before.

A guitar was even propped up against a tree, and authorities recovered half a discarded joint, you know, a marijuana cigarette, if you will, and then Roger lay at the campsite on the South Dakota side in the same fashion as the others. The bodies of the four young men were taken to a mortuary in Rock Rapids, Iowa for identification, as well as notification of next of kin, and for their autopsy. And one by one, police visited the homes of the boys to break the news to their parents. The park was sealed off for investigation as police grappled with how to proceed because they were just so confused as to who would have murdered these innocent boys and why. And really, I mean, the only link that detective seemed

to have to this crime at the time was Stuart's car, which was still unaccounted for. Exactly, I mean, they really didn't have anything at this point until later that fateful Sunday, 13-year-old Sandra Chesky walked into the police station with information about this attack. And it was first-hand information because she was the only survivor. Sandra relayed the portion of the story that the police already surmised, that the five of them had headed out to a quiet area of the park near the

Big Sioux River to hang out by the campfire. About 20 minutes after they arrived, she said that they began hearing rustling noises and snapping branches as if someone were walking in the vicinity of the site, but it was so walking in the vicinity of the site. But it was so dark beyond the glow of the campfire that they couldn't pinpoint where the noises were coming from. So it's like they just, they hear these branches breaking and it almost feels like someone is watching them or sneaking up on them but they just can't figure out where it's coming from.

Which is like everybody who is camping or hanging out in the woods is worse nightmare. It is, yeah. I mean, every time I've gone camping, if I hear one, you know, branch break or one stick break, I'm like, who the fuck is there, you know? Yeah, and at first they're like, oh, maybe it's an animal. It's probably not a big deal,

but these noises continue. Right. So after they each take a few hits from a joint, 17 year old Roger and 18 year old Stewart decided that they're gonna go investigate, setting off into the brush to determine the source of the rustling sounds. Now Sandra remembered her boyfriend Roger giving her a quick kiss before walking toward the wilderness with the two of them calling out variations of, hello, who's there and

who's out there. Then without warning, the sound of gunshots ricocheted through the stillness of the late autumn night. Roger fell to the ground immediately and lay motionless. Stewart had been wounded but not killed, and cried out, quote, I've been shot, it hurts, it hurts. It was then that three unknown men emerged from the darkness and approached the teens, identifying themselves as narcotics officers,

catching them in the act of smoking weed. 15-year-old Michael had apparently tried to reason with them in that moment, but was shot for doing so, leaving just Stewart's 13-year-old brother Dana and 13-year-old Sandra without injury so far. The three men were referring to each other as the boss, hatchet face, and JR during this time, which Sandra remembered. At this point, Stewart and Michael were greatly injured, but alive and frozen by the fire pit with Dana.

While the boss took Sandra Sandra who was the only girl with him tying up her hands and loading her into his car. She noted as many details about the vehicle as she could to the police, which included that the car was a brown, older model Chevrolet truck and noticed that it was affixed with a gun rack on the back window. The windshield was sporting a noticeable crack, and she said that the glove compartment was unlike any other that she'd seen. Which is great that there are these very specific details of this car.

It's not just like, oh, it was just a black car. That's it. She knows that there's a crack in the windshield and a gun rack on the back window. Very smart to even through the fear of being taken that she's noticing these little details. Absolutely. So as he led her into the truck, the boss told Sandra that the boys would be fine

in a few hours and that they had just been shot with tranquilizer guns. As they drove off, Sandra stole one final look back at them, seeing Roger still crumpled on the ground, remember Roger is her boyfriend, and Stuart, Michael, and Dana lined up in front of the two other men who were still wielding their guns. And that would be the last time that she saw any of the boys. After what felt like hours of driving around in circles, the boss pulled into what appeared to be an abandoned farmhouse.

So Sandra didn't have any idea where they were at this point because she didn't know if they were driving in circles, if they were actually putting down distance, and that's probably what the boss was trying to do, was confuse her and make sure she couldn't remember the location they were at, you know what I mean. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. So she had no idea, but all she remembered was that she saw a large red tank of gasoline

outside of this farmhouse. So that was like a specific memory attached to this farmhouse that she thought, okay, there's a tank of gas outside the farmhouse that's all I can really discern about this entire situation. So the Bons' two accomplices eventually pulled up in Stuart Stolen van, but there was no sign of any of the boys. JR then grabbed a terrified sander from the van and sexually assaulted her as the other two men watched nearby.

The men tried to get her to go with them into the farmhouse, but she put up such a fight that they gave up and put her back in the truck. Sandra learned later that the boss had told J and Hatchetface that he was going to take her to a private place to kill her. But instead, Sandra remembers him telling her that she was too young to get caught up in a drug bust. So as they drove away from the farm later, Sandra informed the man of the fact that she was only 13 years old, which apparently totally shocked him.

And with that, he told her that he would help her get out of this, meaning out of being in trouble for being around marijuana since he was claiming to be this narcotics officer. You know what's really weird about this story? It's just how fucking dorky these guys are. They think they're in a movie or something calling themselves the boss and hatchet face and J.R. Who the fuck do you think you are? Yeah, like losers. Yeah, complete morons.

And taking that in like, oh you guys are smoking weed out here. I'm gonna shoot you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you.

And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck with you. And then I'm gonna suck So, throughout the horrors of that evening, Sandra remained very calm and even keeled, which is something that police later credited with saving her life. Apparently, a listening sympathy from her captor, the boss asked Sandra for her address and took her home.

Though he did make her vow not to report what had happened that evening she was dropped on her driveway in the middle of the night shaken but alive and prepared to tell the truth about what happened to her in her friends if she needed to depending on how the boys were doing because remember she thinks that their life because that's what she was told exactly yeah we just shot him with tranquilizer guns they're going to be fine in a few hours

but obviously that was not the case. But since she didn't know that yet, back at home and only starting to process what had just happened to her, Sandra tried to lay down and steady herself first, believing what the boss had told her, that her friends and her boyfriend were hit with a tranquilizer gun, and that the effects would soon wear off. But when Daybroke and she hadn't heard from any of the boys, she began to worry and knew that she needed to report the men that she believed were three rogue officers abusing their power.

She reported to the police station to tell them the shocking story and they were relieved to have a link between the murderers and the victims that they had already uncovered. But Sandra then had to bear the news from the police that none of the four boys with her that night made it out of Gitchie Manitou alive. It was only then that she realized the true scope of what had happened and what she had so narrowly escaped. At first, her story seemed fantastical. Like Sandra recalls that the officers were being skeptical of her retelling of the sequence of events, saying, quote, the police weren't mean to me, they just thought that I knew the names of the people that did it, and they wanted them. They didn't want to do all this driving around because in their minds, they

thought, why would they let her go? Why did only one of the three rape her? To them, it seemed unbelievable. So after giving investigators every detail that she could remember about the night prior, Sandra was placed in protective custody because police were worried that the men would try to retaliate against her for telling her side of the story, and that possibly they would be looking to finish the job. But unfortunately for Sandra, the most secure place for her to be housed was actually a juvenile detention center, so that's where she remained for a little while. Meanwhile, theories ran rampant on a national scale from people within the investigation as well as spectators on the outside of it.

Even the police officers seemed to have an opinion on Sandra and her story. With, like Heath said, police feeling confident that Sandra knew who the men were and just weren't telling. Though her story never changed and her conviction never wavered, her credibility was called into question because she was so young. Investigators even administered a polygraph test,

but she passed it. As funerals for the boys went underway, including a joint funeral for brother Stuart and Dana, the community mourned their unfathomable loss. Meanwhile, Sandra was put to work racking her brain for every detail she could recall about the men. The lone survivor of such a horrific attack. Sandra was an instant sensation and was dubbed Gitchie Girl by the media. Composite sketches of the men were drawn and distributed and police scoured the surrounding area for any sign of the brown pickup truck or Stewart's blue van. And then finally, on Monday, November 19, 1973, Stewart's van was recovered parked in a

Sioux Falls parking lot. But sadly, there didn't appear to be any distinguishable evidence from within the car. I mean, remember, this is 1973, they can can't collect or they can collect DNA evidence, but they can't test it yet. Right. So they couldn't really do anything and nobody had said, oh yeah, I saw this guy that looked like this, drop it off. Like, they just still had nothing.

But obviously it was clear to them that the car was planted in the city where they found it. So Sandra spent day in and day out with detectives who barely seemed to believe what she was alleging, writing down every detail she could remember. And for hours every day after the attack, she drove around in a police cruiser with investigators, searching for that farmhouse that she was taken to in hopes that it would link them back to the murderers.

Sandra later remembered feeling so frustrated at the disbelief and lack of support from the officers that she sometimes didn't even look out the window as they tried to find the farmhouse. But then, after days of winding down back roads looking for anything that seemed familiar, she spotted the red gasoline tank that she had seen on the night that she was taken there. So the police headed up the drive toward the rundown house and Sandra's jaw dropped. The boss, driving his brown Chevrolet truck with a cracked windshield in the gun rack, passed right by them, going the opposite direction. So after days of very little rest for investigators or Sandra, police took her to a farm property

just northwest of Sioux Falls. Acting on a tip about a farm property that contained a dilapidated house, police brought Sandra to scope it out. Spotting the boss pass by in his truck, Sandra screamed. One officer pulled Sandra from the car and the other sped off after the pickup truck. When he finally caught up to him and pulled him over, the driver remained calm, feigning

ignorance and identifying himself as Alan Friar. Alan was brought in for questioning immediately and admitted to knowing the Gitchie Manitou preserve very well, even saying that it was his favorite hunting destination. But he claimed of course that he hadn't been there that night and that he didn't know anything about the murders. However, finally trusting Sanders' account of what happened, police didn't buy what he was saying. And a brief look into Alan's criminal history raised even more suspicions for investigators.

29-year-old Alan Fryer was one of 13 children, and worked as a farmhand at various farms in the Sioux Falls area. Five years prior, Alan and his younger brother David were caught transporting stolen vehicles between Minnesota and Iowa. And in addition to the stolen cars, 24-year-old David also had a violent felony charge on his criminal record. He had been arrested for shooting at people with a shotgun out of the window of his car, but he had yet to kill anyone. That's just like such bullshit.

I know, what a- what a absolute moron this guy is. Truly. And honestly, just a menace. But then, police discovered that another of their brothers, 21-year-old James, went by the nickname JR, which is a name that Sandra had already told them about hearing on the night of her kidnapping. Now JR was known for his social and aptitude, and for being odd and off-putting, of course, frequently making people around him feel uncomfortable, you don't say.

And the farm, which was where the farmhouse was located, was one of the farms that Alan had worked on. So this made a really convincing case for their involvement, but police knew that they needed Sandra to confirm their identities. So police placed the three brothers along with a myriad of other men in a lineup, and Sandra was immediately able to pluck out Alan, who she knew as the boss, able to pluck out Alan, who she knew as the boss, David or hatchet face, and James or J.R. Sandra recalled quote, I had no problem picking them out. It was that one, that one, and that one. I never hesitated for a moment. You just won't ever forget someone's face during something like that.

It becomes the face in your nightmare. I wanted to point them out, I wanted them to be arrested, I wanted them to pay. On November 30th 1973, Allen, David, and James Fryer were officially arrested for the murders of Stuart, Michael, Dana, and Roger. So aside from the question of the motive behind the killing of four innocent boys, another burning question remained. Why was Sandra spared? An agent with the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation who assisted heavily on the case, speculated, quote,

Allen wasn't the brightest bulb. After the boys were gunned down and it was just him and her and the truck, I think he became aware of her as a person rather than just somebody standing out in the woods. She remained calm and they talked and he couldn't bring himself to kill her. And I do agree with that. I think also I'm sure part of the motive of taking her away from the scene was to sexually assault her and then maybe find when he found out how young she was and realize that she was being calm and was you know dealing with the situation that they were just going to let her go.

I think that's probably why she was the one out of the rest of them that was removed from the area. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there's no question that they knew exactly what they were going to do with Sandra. Yeah. Whether or not, you know, they later decided to kill her, which they obviously didn't, but yeah, I think there was a lot of motive there in the beginning.

Totally. Former law enforcement officer and Sandra's friend, Kevin Kunkle, theorized, quote, these guys went fesent hunting that day but didn't get any fesence. So they went deer hunting but couldn't find any deer. That's when they decided to hunt the one thing they could find. Humans. The men were separated and questioned with investigators hoping that they would be less willing to lie for each other if they were alone.

Now the boss, so Alan, had been truthful about one aspect of that night. The men did indeed go hunting, but when they came upon the group of teenagers, they had pivoted to shooting the teens for sport. Oh yeah, it really is. So separately, David quickly fell apart and began pointing fingers at his brothers, hoping for a lighter sentence. And by David's testimony, Alan was the first to start shooting, which Sandra corroborated as well.

David watched as Alan raised his shotgun, hitting Roger, and following suit, James started firing indiscriminately, hitting, but not yet killing, Stewart. After Alan left with Sandra in the truck, J.R. and David climbed into Stewart's van, putting his brights on, and then David claimed that he watched as James shot Dana, then Stewart, and then Michael. David admitted to shooting Stewart, but said that he was already dead and on the ground when that happened, but who knows if that's true. David's conviction moved at a shockingly swift pace after his admission of guilt, and on February 12th, 1974, so just three months after the slangs.

David pled guilty to three counts of murder and one count of manslaughter. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but shockingly, Alan and James both pled not guilty. But what was even more shocking was that they managed to escape from jail shortly after that. While being held in the Lion County jail in Rock Rapids, Iowa, which is about a 45-minute drive from Sioux Falls, Allen was able to weaken the lock on his cell in the middle of the night.

After pulling a wire from his mattress, Allen managed to snake the lock and wrench it open. He then sneakily retrieved the keys to James' cell and let him out as well. Insanity. So crazy. Then the two fled the jail, stealing a nearby car and heading west. And according to the jail, there had been an attendant on duty that night. But somehow, the escape had gone undetected until 8 a.m, Tuesday, June 18, 1974, which was

hours after they escaped. Now aside from the obvious risk the Fryer brothers posed to the public, police were concerned that Sandra was in legitimate danger, thinking that they could be coming back for her to retaliate. So Sandra remembers just being absolutely terrified, and Sioux Falls police established 24-hour armed patrol outside of her family's home just to protect her. Though little did they know, the men were just trying to flee and likely start a new. So after leaving Rock Rapids, Iowa, the brothers made it to Wyoming, but not without incident. When they reached Hill City, South Dakota, they hit a female pedestrian in a crosswalk and

just sped off, causing more chaos and tragedy in their wake. In Newcastle, Wyoming, they stole another car, but following a dramatic high-speed chase, Allen and James were finally apprehended a day later in Gillette Wyoming, which is over 500 miles or 800 kilometers from where they escaped. So these absolute knuckleheads did all of this in a very short period of time. I mean they hit a person at a crosswalk with their car, they stole two cars, and they made it 500 miles away. You know what they say, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

So on December 30th, 1974, James, like David, was convicted of three charges of first degree murder and one charge of manslaughter. And for those wondering, prosecutors declined to pursue rape charges against James in order to spare Sandra the pain of a fourth trial which was both frustrating and a relief for her. And on May 20th, 1974, Allen was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, which was mostly thanks to Sandra's unwavering testimony.

Now with the men, finally behind bars permanently, Sandra was left to pick up the pieces and move forward with her life, but she greatly struggled to do so under the weight of the trauma that she had endured. She went back to attending school as usual but said that she felt alienated by her peers. When she should have been commended for her bravery and heroism, she was instead the victim of a media firestorm. Critics came after her choice to be hanging out with teenage boys and for smoking marijuana, and Sandra claims many students that she went to school with were instructed by their parents to stay away from her.

That's so messed up, like... It's sick. It's absolutely not her fault that she was, you know, hanging out with her friends and her boyfriend at the time and something like this happened. Yeah, absolutely. But everybody was treating her like it was her fault and that she made poor choices. And this happened to her because of it, which is such victim blaming like it's it's so disgusting. Yeah she's a 13 year old girl. Come on. Well eventually the speculation and judgment just became too much for her and she dropped

at a school altogether. Sandra remembers feeling quote horrible ashamed alone I felt all of that. And on top of the shame that she felt, she said that she suffered from severe survivors guilt, saying, quote, I felt ashamed because I lived. I should have been with the boys. As we know, 50 years ago, mental health services were of course not what they are today, and Sandra was just expected to resume her childhood as normal. She wasn't offered therapy or any sort of social service or support,

and as life around her seemed to resume, Sandra said, quote, for years I had nightmares, and my mom would crawl into bed with me when I was 15 years old still. And although her mom was very supportive, she worked a lot, and Sandra didn't have much of a relationship with her stepfather,

who lived at home with them, so she just felt really alone in this tragedy. But Sandra remembers fondly that she was embraced by the families of the victims. She said that her boyfriend Rogers family as well as the Badeys, quote, wrapped me in their arms afterward. She and Lynette Hadrath, Michael's younger sister, also formed a supportive relationship as they had to testify against David at his parole hearing, which was eventually denied. Thank God.

Only in the last decade or so has Sandra felt empowered enough to speak about what had happened to her. She credits her family with that development, saying, quote, my grandchildren are going to Google Gitchee Manitoo, and they're going to see my name and read horrific stuff that they don't know about. I have nieces who are 12, they're going to be 13, and they're pretty smart these days. I just don't want them to find it and be shocked and upset. I want them to know that it was a huge tragedy and that grandma wasn't doing anything bad. And nobody deserved it out there what happened.

We weren't drugging, we were just going out for a night, and it was so wrong. In 2016, Sandy and Phil Hammond, teachers who were born and raised in Sioux Falls, published a book called Gitchie Girl, the survivor's inside story of the mass murders that shocked the heartland. Sandy and Phil worked closely with Sandra to do justice to both her story and the lives of the boys, especially since Phil had been a childhood friend of Michaels. Sandy said of Sandra, quote, even after all that she's been through, Sandra is one of the most positive people I've ever met.

Sandra stayed in the Sioux Falls area, married, had children, and now has grandchildren. And all three of the Friar Brothers are still serving their life sentences at the Iowa State Penitentiary Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Tuesday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Just such a senseless story, thank you again to Amber for suggesting it. I do love when there is a survivor in the story, but it's so sad to think that everybody else, Michael, Roger, Stewart and Dana, we're all just hanging out trying to have a good time around a campfire in November.

And senselessly murdered for no reason. Just disgusting. So thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode. We're gonna have some bonus episodes for you guys this month as always if you want them. We're almost at a hundred full length ad-free bonus episodes about true crime cases that we don't cover on going west. We leave the US a lot on that show that's called real crime. Yeah, we do a lot of international cases. Yeah, but also sometimes we do US, we do a lot of Canadian cases as well, and we just did a really fun one the other day that we called ICU, and that was just kind of a bunch of fun true scary stories that we found online that are kind of like somewhat true crime.

But not true crime cases just to mix it up a little bit if you want to listen to that one, and almost a hundred other ones you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Apple subscriptions or on patreon.com slash going west podcast. And again I just wanted to mention that if you do have a recommendation for a case make sure you email us that's going west podcast at gmail.com that is the place that we're going to see those requests. All right guys so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you