SPEEDWAY, Ind. (Scripps News Indianapolis) — 45 years ago, four young fast-food employees were kidnapped and murdered. The cold-case, which remains unsolved, is the subject of an upcoming true crime documentary.
“The Speedway Murders” tells the story of four Burger Chef employees who were kidnapped from a restaurant in Speedway, Indiana, on Nov. 17, 1978.
The murders of Jayne Friedt, 20, Ruth Shelton, 17, Mark Flemmonds, 17, and Daniel Davis, 16, remain unsolved to this day. (Scripps News Indianapolis)
The bodies of Jayne Friedt, 20, Ruth Shelton, 17, Mark Flemmonds, 17, and Daniel Davis, 16, were discovered two days later in a remote area of Johnson County.
Altitude Film told Deadline that the new documentary will use actors to reenact four theories as to what happened that night. The documentary is finished and will be released later this year, Deadline reported.
The Burger Chef murders remain one of Indiana’s most notorious and confounding unsolved crimes.
“I think about it often. I dream about it sometimes,” retired Indiana State Police 1st Sgt. Stoney Vann told Scripps News Indianapolis in 2023. “This is the type of case that I will take to my grave.”
From 1988 to his retirement in 2018, Vann served as the lead investigator on the Burger Chef homicides.
Despite the work of Vann and others, no one has been arrested in the Burger Chef killings.
Indiana State Police spokesman Sgt. John Perrine said the Burger Chef homicides remain an open case and under “active investigation.”
“Technology has changed in the past 45 years on how we investigate crimes like this and it continues to get better,” Perrine said. “We’re hoping that we’re on the cusp of technology that will give us substantial leads in this case and so that we can get some closure for these families 45 years later.”
FBI FILES: Find the full FBI file on the Burger Chef murders here.
This story was originally published by Scripps News Indianapolis, an E.W. Scripps Company.
