Murder, Mystery & Makeup - UNSOLVED 4 Murders- Did They Find The Man Responsible Too Late?

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

Hi Friends! Hope you are having a wonderful day today. This story is quite sad and still remains “unsolved”. Hopefully one day someone will come forward and give the families the closure they deserve.   Let me know what you think down below and I will be seeing you guys very soon! Love and appreciate you guys so much  x o  Bailey Sarian  If you haven't already, check me out on YouTube @BaileySarian!

Hi guys, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's Murder, Mystery and Makeup Monday. If you're new here, every Monday I sit down, I talk about a true crime story that's been on my noggin and I put on my makeup at the same time. If you like true crime, if you like murder, if you like true crime and you like makeup,

go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Every Monday, I'm here. No story. So today's story is unsolved and it takes place in Speedway, Indiana. And it involves four young employees of this fast food joint called Burger, Burger Chef. Burger Chef.

I'm so sorry. Oh my gosh, this is not appropriate. No, I'm not on drugs or anything. I was just having a conversation today how I can't pronounce anything, how embarrassing it is. Burger Chef. Oh man, I was laugh crying. Okay, back to the story.

These four young employees worked at a local burger joint and it was called Burger Chef. They just vanished and then later, sadly, they were found, all four of them murdered on November 17th, 1978. Four young people were closing up a Burger Chef restaurant. We have Jane Freed, she was 20 years old and she was the assistant manager on

duty that night. We had Ruth Shelton, she was 17 years old. Daniel Davis, he was 16. And Mark Flemons, who was also 16. They were scheduled to stay a couple hours past closing to clean up and get things ready for the morning shift. The Burger Chef chain, it doesn't exist anymore, but at the time it was an Indianapolis based company with about 600 restaurants nationally. And then in the early 1980s, it was absorbed by Hardee's or Carl's Jr. Around midnight, one of them opened the back door to take out the garbage.

What happened next is not even fully known. It's all speculation and theories and stuff like that, but somebody opened the back door. That's what we know for sure. Sadly, none of the kids made it out that night. So Jane Freed, she was 20 years old. She was described as a leader with a sense of humor and a heart of gold.

Then we have Daniel Davis. He's 16 years old. He was described as a leader with a sense of humor and a heart of gold. Then we have Daniel Davis. He's 16 years old. He was described as a talented photographer who made loved ones smile. We have Mark Flemons, also 16. He was described as friendly, selfless, with a good sense of style. Ruth Shelton, she was 17 years old.

Some articles I read said that she was 18 years old. So 17 or 18. She was described as creative, honest, and kind and with a love for music. So, I mean, everyone involved is just very young, right? I'm sure it's probably some of their like first jobs. So at around midnight, another employee went by the restaurant to visit the four and he realized that,

okay, no one's around, where is everybody? He goes and he realized that, okay, no one's around. Where is everybody? He goes and he checks the back area and he sees that the back door has been slightly left ajar. So the four employees that were working, they're missing. The back door is open. He also notices that there's money missing. There was roughly about $500 that was missing from the safe.

So the police were called, but the police didn't take this case seriously. There's only $500 missing. That's it. Okay, backtrack. So the police were called and they come out there and they see, okay, there's money missing. The police also found two empty currency bags.

They also saw that two women's purses were left behind. Some of the employees jackets were left behind as well. And also Jane, the manager that was on duty, her 1974 Chevrolet Vega that was left, but I mean, that was missing as well. So police did not take this case seriously because there was only $500 missing from the safe. And also because that there was no physical sign

of struggle at all. It just seemed like walked out the back door and that was it. The police thought that this was petty embezzlement with the assumption that the four missing employees stole the cash to go party that night. So the police thought this, even though that the two purses were left behind,

I mean, they assumed that they just went out to party. Frustratingly enough, you'll never guess what happens. Because it was seen as like nothing happened, the next day, the restaurant still has to, it still has to open, right? It's a business. So if you've worked like retail or you work, if you work, I'm sure maybe one of your duties is to clean.

So the next morning people come in to work and they clean. And so they clean the back area, they clean the front area, they get it all ready for just another day of business. And this is frustrating because they essentially got rid of any evidence that may have been left behind. But the next day people started to maybe worry because nobody that was scheduled to work that day that went missing, they didn't show up.

That same day they found Jane's car, Chevrolet Vega. It was parked on the street near the Speedway police station. It was only a short drive from the restaurant, but also it showed no signs of her. After her car was found, this is when people really started to worry a little bit more. So Speedway police told the media that it was,

quote, a very peculiar case. Media meaning newspapers. There were no leads and neither they nor the employees families had received a ransom call, which I guess was weird at the time. I don't know. But for some reason that made it strange. So on Sunday afternoon, November 19th,

some people were out like in the woods. No, it's not like a wooded area. It was just kind of like a little trail, a little hiking trail. Some hikers came across all four of the missing employees, their bodies, sorry, I didn't say that. They came across their bodies. Could you imagine just on a nice little hike

with your loved one and you come across four kids. This area was over 20 miles from the Burger Chef. A 40 minute drive from the location. And it was right next to like a high school. Daniel Davis and Ruth Shelton, they were found first. Both of them were shot execution style, multiple multiple times with a.38 caliber firearm. Jane, she was found nearby. She had been stabbed in the chest.

The handle of the knife was broken off. So it was just like the blade itself was in her, but the handle was gone. It was missing, it was never located. The blade itself later recovered during the autopsy. Lastly, Mark Flemons was found 75 yards away. He suffered blunt force trauma to the head and they believe this is a result of running into something,

possibly a tree trunk. You see what they think had happened was that Mark actually escaped. Like he somehow got free or like got away from the people and he was making a run for it. And when he was making a run for it, they think that he must have like run into a tree or tree trunk, hitting his head, which then knocked him unconscious. And then he kind of fell downhill and then he choked on his own blood, which is so like, I'm mad because this poor kid, he gets away. He's making a run for it to be stopped by a tree trunk.

It was later on determined that he was also hit by like something else. So the attackers or the killers, they must have also like just to make sure he's dead, they beat him some more, some real shitty people. Side note, I know I always add these. While doing like research into this story and stuff I could find, it's so hard, first of all,

in general to find like credible resources. You know, the internet, it's so hard, first of all, in general, to find like credible resources. You know, the internet, it's a black hole of just nonsense. And you never know like if a website is giving you accurate information or not for starters. I've been learning that the hard way. Secondly, on older cases and maybe like cases that you don't hear about often, it's extremely difficult to find

information on the story. So like for this story I couldn't find anything about like their families how did they find out did the police actually ever go and like try to get evidence from the burger place like there was stuff that was kind of missing that I couldn't find. Everything that I found came from an interview with one of the police officers that was actually investigating this case. So I find him to be like a credible source because he actually investigated this case. A general theory among authorities

was that this was some sort of robbery gone bad. One or more of the employees might have recognized one of the killers or maybe one of them put up a fight and the rest of the workers had to be eliminated. There was a rumor that at least one of the victims had been involved with drugs, possibly even selling marijuana out of the restaurant. So they're thinking maybe the dealer owed money

and the supplier had to come collect. So finally, a witness comes forward. A 16 year old who was out that night said that they saw two suspicious looking men outside the restaurant just before closing time. When asked to describe the two men physically, the witness said one of them had a beard and the other one had a clean shaven face.

Lots of information to work off of. So police had several persons of interest based off of those leads. So they just kind of started questioning around. You gotta start somewhere, right? There was one man who was tracked to a bar on the West side where this man, he was reportedly bragging about the murders saying that he had been involved, he done it.

Let me talk about it, yeah. The investigator on this case, he actually went to the bar off duty, he went undercover and met with the guy who was bragging. He started playing pool with him and he could not get a confession out of this guy though. So he tried his best. Police ended up bringing him downtown,

the guy that was bragging at the bar, but the man, he ended up passing a polygraph test and it just kind of cleared him. He didn't give any evidence that he may have done it. A lot of the stuff wasn't out to the public yet, like the knife not having a handle, how some of the others were found. So it was like they were asking kind of

that only the killer would know. And he just, he didn't have anything. Waste of time. Why would you brag about that? So then weeks ended up turning into months, dry as a bone. Throughout 1979 and 1980, newspapers would randomly report on this case and then mention a new prime suspect.

And it was usually somebody who was linked to a murder in like the town next door or like a town close by. None of them ever led anywhere. March, 1981, Jane, remember Jane, her brother ended up being arrested and he was arrested for cocaine. Police started to question him thinking

maybe he was involved. I mean, he ended up being cleared, but for a minute, like they were thinking maybe he knew more than he was leading on. I think they just didn't have anything. So they were like, you, you did it. Let me question you. So at that time they had no confession from anybody.

They had no suspects, no physical evidence, nothing. The only thing they had was the end of the knife they didn't even find the bullet like shell casings they didn't even find that burger place had been cleaned so there was nothing for anybody to go off of they had potential suspects who were described to them bearded and not bearded. So their options are just, I mean, it could be anybody, right? So time is going on, years are going by, people are,

I mean, there are new crimes happening. So of course this one just keeps getting put farther and farther back on the list of things to do. Lead investigator to this crime, he stayed on it. Like he found himself being fixated with this story. He wanted to find who did it because I mean, this was such a heinous crime and these people are, whoever is involved is just out there.

And he was getting desperate. He reached out to psychics, okay. He reached out to learn how to hypnotize people so he could get better information from them not to hypnotize people and get them to confess more like get information from them like the people who actually physically saw the killers hypnotize them and hopefully like they would remember a name a license plate what they were wearing, something. Anyway, so 1984, 34 year old detective who had already been in the force for 16 years,

he had been assigned to assist in the Burger Chef murders. And then he got a tip in November, it was a phone call, and it was from the Pendleton Correctional Facility, which this inmate, he wanted to confess to the murders. So jailhouse confessions are a staple of criminal investigations. Inmates will overhear fellow inmates talking about what they've done pretty much.

And then they will use that as leverage to get either less time or maybe get something that they want they kind of do a little like tradesy anyways so both of these investigators they go to this jail and they talk to a guy named donald wayne forrester he was 34 years old and he had just been convicted of raping a woman. He'd been sentenced to 95 years in prison and was about to be transferred as a sex offender, Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. It's said that nobody wants to go to this prison

and nobody wants to go to this prison because you will probably die, especially if you've been accused of some kind of sex crime. So he wanted to pretty much confess to the murders. That way in trade, he wouldn't have to go to that jail or that prison. So they did a background check on this guy, Donald, and they see that he actually grew up in the area

that was pretty close to where the murders took place. He at the time was living in Speedway and he had just gotten out of prison for another rape conviction. I think he has a problem. So they sit him down, they interview him on camera and this guy, Donald, he ends up confessing to killing Davis and Shelton.

So they start digging a little bit deeper and asking just little details that only he would know. So the detectives actually ended up putting this Donald guy into the back of their car and they go and they drive out to where the bodies were found. And Donald, the killer, he is able to show them exactly where the bodies were at. And this was something that was not technically made public,

like where exactly everybody was at and he outlined precisely where and in what position the bodies were found. According to these detectives he was spot on. Over the next two years this inmate Donald the killer he would call in and like talk to them and give them more and more information according to donald jane's brother the one who was arrested for cocaine he owed money for a drug deal and they came that night to the burger joint to simply threaten jane one of the other boys stepped in to kind of like defend her then they start like fighting and then they go out into the back into like i guess it's a parking lot area so they go into the back and then they kind of like defend her. Then they start like fighting. And then they go out into the back, into like, I guess it's a parking lot area.

So they go into the back and then they kind of, they start fighting with each other. And he ends up falling and hitting his head. And he hit his head on the killer's fan, like on the bumper. So now the killers who came simply to threaten Jane, they're like, oh no, we just killed somebody. So their thought process, because they're idiots,

I don't, yeah, I mean, that's all we can really say. Their thought process was, well, now we gotta kill all of them because they all know what just happened. They get into Jane's car, they drive them out, and then they kill them. And again, this isn't a fact technically, this is just what Donald the inmate is telling the detectives.

So Donald tells the detectives that he shot two people, but that there were three other guys involved. The reason why the detective like heavily believes this guy is because again, Donald the inmate, he knew about the knife being in Jane and the handle being broken. The murder weapon, the gun was never found, but Donald the killer, I'm just gonna keep saying that,

he told him that he threw the gun into the White River, which was like right close by, and he threw it off of this bridge. So he takes the detectives to the bridge and shows them like, yeah, I threw it like this. But when people went out to like search the water out there, nothing was ever found. So then detectives go and they question Donald's ex-wife.

Now this ex-wife is really spilling the truth. She told the detectives that her and Donald were driving somewhere and they ended up pulling over. He said he needed to check something. She didn't really ask questions, I don't know. But they pulled over to this dirt road and he essentially took her in the car to where the bodies were found.

He said he needed to retrieve shell casings from shooting his gun out there. So she was like, okay, whatever. She sat in the car. He gets out. He goes into this wooded area and he picks up the shell casings from his gun. So then they go home and then the ex-wife tells detectives that he ended up flushing them down the toilet that day. So then the detectives go to the old house they no longer live there somebody else lives there they go to the house and they find out that the the potty what's it called the um bathroom whatever is on a septic tank so pretty much all of the um you know shit it gets collected in this like thing, but it gets like collected essentially.

And so they end up obtaining a warrant to dig up the septic tank. They end up going through all this shit and stuff. Like, yeah, they go through it all. Not with their bare hands, people. Okay, I'm sure everything they have gloves on and stuff. They go through it all, right? And guess what?

They found the shell casings of the.38 caliber that said to be used by Donald. Like he wasn't lying about that story. It's kind of like connecting the dots, right? You're thinking like, yeah, like he obviously is telling the truth. So these detectives are like, this is our guy. This has to be our guy.

He knows things that other people don't know. Just his story just seemed very legit. Now here's where shit went wrong. I don't, yeah. So on November 14th, 1986, somebody's dumb ass working in the police department, they decided to release information they had about this case and their new suspect to the press.

Once the press had released this information, this freaked Donald out. He was afraid of retribution from his associates. Donald recanted three days later, which means that Donald ended up taking back everything he said, he said, actually, no, I didn't do it, sorry. I was lying. Losing his confession obviously upset the detectives.

Like we were almost there. Why it hurt them is because they couldn't get some final evidence that they needed. They had his confession on tape, but it just said in the document that I was reading, it said that they couldn't get the final evidence that they needed. But to me, like if they got him on camera confessing,

isn't that all you really need? I don't know, but that's what it said. Okay, December 22nd is when the police department announced that Donald would not be charged on this case and that the case has now gone back to being cold. There is no statue of limitations in Indiana, but there is a tight limit on law enforcement resources. Donald the killer, well, guess what?

He ended up dying in prison. 2006, that's fine. You can die, Donald, but come on, we were almost there. I think the evidence that they didn't get was like the names of the other guys, the other killers. I don't know, what took them so long though? They had two years. I don't know.

One of the main investigators on this case, and he says like still obsesses over this case because he knew he had the guy. And it's just really frustrating because people constantly say, well, not constantly, but people will say that it's a cold case, but really it's like they had the guy, they had him. That would probably, that would drive me insane.

Like I had him. I couldn't imagine what that would, that would fuck you up. So November and December of 2018 marked the 40 year anniversary, is it anniversary? That's not the right word. 40 year mark of this sad murders. Investigators released a photo of the blade that was retrieved from Jane,

hoping that it would help bring leads forward. And that is the sad and awful story about the murders at Burger Chef. People need to shut their dirty little mouths and not brag to the press because shit like this can happen Where things get fucked up and that must be extremely frustrating But he did mention that there were three others involved and I'm wondering why nobody has come forward about that

Feel so bad because like, you know, it was probably some of their like first jobs. They're just working the whole thing's really sad Other than that that i hope you have a really good day today make good choices and be safe out there i'll be seeing you guys later bye