INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — 45 years ago, Burger Chef in Speedway, Indiana, was thriving when most of the businesses around Speedway didn’t exist. Had it not been for the history of this building, nobody would think twice about it being torn down. 

“When we visited the site of the burger chef recently and saw it being torn down there is a certain amount of melancholy comes over you,” said Áine Cain of the Murder Sheet podcast.

The gold-colored roof has been painted green, the bright red Burger Chef sign was taken down years ago. On Nov. 17, 1978, four employees were taken from this building and murdered. Mark Flemmonds was beaten, Jane Friedt was stabbed, and both Daniel Davis and Ruth Ellen Shelton were shot to death. Their bodies were found in a wooden section of Johnson County a day and a half later. Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee have written extensively on the Burger Chef murders 

“The problem with Burger Chef is that every fact is like a fork in the road with limited information, so you could read into that Mark and Jane who were killed via asphyxiation on blood and stabbing respectively that they were the targets,” Cain said. “But you could also read into that the killers were very unorganized and ran out of ammo, or had a gun issue and had to made due with increasingly desperate methods because the thing about the knife is the knife broke after Jane was stabbed, so are we seeing them target specifically? Or are we seeing just a series of grisly accidents happening as they are trying to kill these kids?” 

Jane Friedt’s abandoned car was found not far from the Burger Chef. There was nothing found in the car connecting the murders. The handling of both crime scenes, inside the restaurant and where their bodies were found, were compromised. Police allowed employees to clean the restaurant hours after the abduction, erasing evidence. In November 2003, News 8 talked to Ken York, an Indiana State Police detective at the time of the murders. Witnesses had helped police build composite sketches and clay models of two men that might have entered the restaurant right before closing. A tip led York to a group of men who had been robbing fast food restaurants. York offered them a deal.  

“Total immunity if they would tell what they knew about the Burger Chef case and take a polygraph to back that up if either one of them could say they inflicted the killing injury on either on any of the victims, and both of them went to prison instead of taking a polygraph or talk about it,” said York in 2003. 

York told News 8 that unless someone confesses or new evidence is discovered, he believes those two men committed the murders.  

Indiana State Police assigned the Burger Chef murder case to a detective 6 years ago after new evidence was found. A spokesperson for ISP told News 8 the detective is actively pursuing the case.  

According to a spokesperson for the town of Speedway, the Burger Chef building is privately owned and future plans have not yet been released.