A neighbor of his, who had not been spotted by the original witness but who had been named by the Greenwood suspect, subsequently went to prison for armed robbery. Summoned for a lineup, the man shaved his beard (which he had had for the previous five years) the night before he was to appear. While following up on these leads in Franklin, officers spotted a man who bore a strong resemblance to the "bearded man" composite. The man provided the names of others who he suggested belonged to a fast-food robbery gang, whom investigators suspected may have been involved in the case. Police subsequently questioned him, but he passed a polygraph claiming not to have been involved officers were unable to bring charges on other grounds. Later in 1978, a man in a bar in Greenwood bragged that he had been involved in the killings. The police had models of the suspects created in clay to assist the investigation. One man had a beard the other was clean-shaven with light-colored ("fair") hair. Both men were white and in their thirties.
On the night of the murders, a 16-year-old eyewitness saw two suspicious men in a car outside the Burger Chef just before closing. Flemmonds was covering for another employee's shift and was not scheduled to work that night, leading investigators to speculate that perhaps he was the one who recognized the killers since they had not planned on him being there. The leading theory of investigators has been that the four victims were kidnapped during a botched robbery, possibly after one of the victims recognized one of the perpetrators. Money and watches were found on the dead victims, implying that robbery might not have been the sole motive for the murders. All four victims were still wearing their Burger Chef uniforms. Flemmonds was later determined to have been bludgeoned - possibly with a chain - and died from choking to death on his own blood. The handle of the knife had broken off and was missing the blade was later recovered during an autopsy. Friedt had been stabbed twice in the chest. Both Davis and Shelton had been shot numerous times with a. On Sunday afternoon, hikers found the bodies of all four youths over 20 mi (32 km) away, a wooded area of Johnson County. It became evident that the youths had been abducted while closing the restaurant for the night, with the attack possibly beginning as they removed trash bags out the back door. When the four did not reappear the following morning and Friedt's Chevrolet Vega was found partially locked in town, concerns grew. Not only was the restaurant cleaned and allowed to be reopened, but no photographs were taken beforehand, effectively eliminating all potential evidence at the crime scene. īuddy Ellwanger, a Speedway police officer who was eventually assigned to the case, admitted "we screwed it up from the beginning". Although the purses and jackets of the missing women had been left at the shop, the theft theory initially seemed most likely and the scene was cleaned by employees early Saturday morning. More than US$100 in coins was left in the registers. It was thought to be a case of petty theft, with the assumption that the pilfered cash had been used by the youths to go partying that night. Police did not initially consider the case to be serious, given that management reported the loss of only approximately US$581 (equivalent to $2,607 in 2022) from the safe and no clear signs of a struggle. Police found two empty currency bags and an empty roll of adhesive tape next to the open safe. A fellow employee who came by at midnight to visit the four noticed that the restaurant was empty, the safe was open, and the back door ajar.
Marion County Indiana Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Speedway Highlightedīetween 11:00 pm (closing time) and midnight (23:00 and 24:00 EST) on November 17, 1978, four employees of the Burger Chef restaurant at 5725 Crawfordsville Road disappeared: assistant manager Jayne Friedt, 20 Daniel Davis, 16 Mark Flemmonds, 16 and Ruth Ellen Shelton, 18.
0 kommentar(er)
