August 21, 2024 • 31 mins
The bodies of Danny, Jayne, Mark and Ruth were found two days after their final shift at Burger Chef in late 1978, 20 miles away in a rural field.
They’d been shot, stabbed and bashed - each of their murders telling its own devastating tale of the teenagers' last terrifying moments alive.
Their deaths shocked their small tight-knit community and now, 40 years later, two Australian filmmakers are searching for answers.
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Guest: Co-writers & co-directors of The Speedway Murders, Luke Rynderman and Adam Kamien
Host: Gemma Bath
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Audio Producer: Leah Porges
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to Amma Mea podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges the
traditional owners of land and waters. This podcast was recorded
on It's a Chilly Night in November nineteen seventy eight
in the town of Speedway, Indianapolis, and the four teenagers
on shift at the local burgerschef are starting to clean up.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, Mama, I was just wondering if I could stay
back to help close.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Danny Davis is talking to his mum Norma in the
back room. He's only sixteen and state law dictates that
he's only supposed to work until ten pm, but his manager,
twenty year old Jane Freed, wants him to check with
his parents if he can stay in extra hour or so.
They agree. He joins sixteen year old Mark Flemons and
(00:59):
seventeen year old Ruth Shelton as they go through the
motions of mopping, wiping and packing away. But when their colleague,
fellow teenager Brian Crane, stops by the sh shop just
after midnight to pay his coworkers a visit, he notices
something odd. The lights are on, the door is open,
but there is no one there. Scared, he calls police.
(01:24):
Thank you Police, emergency, but they very quickly decide it's
just a case of a bunch of irresponsible youngsters walking
off the job to go party for the night. It
is a Friday, after all, But none of them return home,
and thirty six hours later police receive a devastating call.
(01:51):
I'm Jemma Bath and this is True Crime Conversations Amoma
mea podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking
to the people who know the most about them. The
bodies of Danny, Jane Mark, and Druth were found two
days after their final shift at Bergershev in late nineteen seven,
twenty miles away in a rural field. They've been shot, stabbed,
(02:16):
and bashed, each of their murders telling its own devastating
tale of the teenager's last terrifying moments alive. They were
all still wearing their orange and brown Burger chef uniforms.
They were all left in the positions they died. Their
deaths shocked their small, tight knit community, but from the
start the police investigation was bungled, and forty years later,
(02:39):
so many questions about that night remain. Ossies Luke Rinderman
and Adam came in are the co writers and directors
of a new documentary drama called The Speedway Murders, which
tries to unpick and unpack the various theories in this case.
They've been working on this investigation for five years, speaking
to families, witnesses, friends, and law enforcement about their recollections.
(03:04):
Both Luke and Adam join us. Now, Adam Luke, you
both live in Australia. This crime happened on the other
side of the world. So what drew you to revisiting
this crime? We'll start with you.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Adam Luke's a true crime tragic to the point where
I worry about him a little bit from time to time.
We had just had some interest in a script that
we'd written and were kind of looking for the next
thing to kind of keep the momentum going. We're big
fans of the period fashion music. For people who are
(03:45):
listening that don't know the crime that films based on
took place in nineteen seventy eight, that was appealing to us.
We discovered that it was unsolved, the investigation was botched,
so it felt like that it hadn't sort of been
given the attention that it should have. So we sort
of thought, well, maybe if we do a deep dive,
we can uncover some stuff. So we sort of went
down this rabbit hole and never really emerged.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Luke, is there a reason you didn't decid had to
go down a more Australian unsolved crime.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I mean, there's definitely Australian unsolved crimes that we're interested in.
But you know, we were looking all over the world,
and you know, there was just a certain tragedy to
the fact that it wasn't solved, and you know, there
was four people at the center, of young people that
nothing had been done about, and you know, the families
not knowing, and so yeah, it just kind of like
(04:34):
it hit us, and as Adam said, we never really
come up from it.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
The crime itself happened on the same weekend as the
Jonestown massacre, so it had always kind of gotten short shrift.
It never really got the attention that it deserved, which
was another thing that sort of enticed us.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Before we get more into the crime, I'd love to
get a bit more background on you two. You guys
have known each other for a long time, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
It's true we were introduced by a mutual friend in
I think nineteen eighty nine, so we've kind of been
really tight ever since.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
What's it like working on a project this big, this
in depth, this kind of gruesome with your best mete.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
It's a great friendship tester.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
It can be maddening at times. I mean we do
piss each other off at times, and it is definitely
a tester and you know, going over and doing you know,
various trips to Indianapolis and staying very closely together, you know,
does test the friendship. We never fight about anything not creative.
It's always creative issues. So it's never like anything about
(05:40):
the person. It's just you know, we're both so passionate
about it.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
The burger chef we're talking about is in a place
called Speedway in Indianapolis, Adam, what's that part of America?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Like? It's Midwest, so it's sort of in the heartland.
You know, most people when they go and visit America,
they don't tend to go to the Midwest. They go
to the coasts, you know, sort of LA or New
York or you know, maybe a Chicago or something like that,
which actually is just kind of on top of Indiana
where this is. In a lot of ways, it's the
real America. Indianapolis is kind of a small town. I
(06:11):
think there's under a million people there, and Speedway is
kind of a town within Indianapolis, a suburb within Indianapolis.
I guess they're an extremely hospitable people, and you know,
if you sort of venture outside the city, it's a
lot of cornfields and diners and that sort of typical
(06:33):
Middle America.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You've mentioned that we're talking nineteen seventy eight, and around
the time of this crime, there had actually been quite
a few violent incidents. Can you set that scene for us?
Speaker 4 (06:44):
So Speedway is this little enclave.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I guess that, by all reports was kind of a
sleepy little hamlet. People didn't tend to lock their doors.
It was a safe place to grow up. It was
an autoparts industry, you know, it was the sort of
economic driver. Something happened in the late seventies. This kind
of hell mouth opens in Speedway, and all of a sudden,
(07:08):
we've got bike gangs, I've got drugs, we've got violent crime, murder,
and a lot of these things play into the theory
surrounding what happened at the Burgershev and in a lot
of ways, it's quite maddening when you're trying to investigate
a crime because there were so many bad actors in
(07:29):
Speedway at the time, you know, chop shops as well,
so places that would sort of steal cars and piece
them out, that it's kind of hard to narrow the field.
It's hard to kind of rule anybody out when you
look at people that you think may have been capable
of something as heinous as the quadruple murder of four
kids in Speedway specifically at the time, there were plenty
(07:51):
of people with form.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
How was the initial disappearance of these four young people
discovered on that night or on that following morning in
November nineteen seventy eight, there.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Was an employee that was working there that went out
on a date with another employee, and as he dropped
his date off, he went back to see if they
needed help closing and came in the back door and
then subsequently found it open, and then went in and
saw that the safe had been ransacked and some things
were sort of like at place, and he rang the manager,
(08:26):
and then the manager rang police, and then police came down.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And what did they do? Did they move quickly? Did
they ignore it?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
So in their infinite wisdom they let them reopen the
restaurant the next day for business as usual, hoping that
the kids had just kind of taken the money and
gone off to party.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
In twenty twenty four, it's hard to comprehend that revisiting
that yourselves. Is that like a normal thing to do
in policing in the late seventies to just kind of
ignore something that looks quite sinister and a bit like
a crime scene.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
I think everybody accepts now.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
It was a mistake that kind of hamstrung the case
really speed made police at the time. Remember, is kind
of a small town, and even though there was a
lot of violent they wouldn't have had to deal with
many quadruple murders. And I think they just watched it
and continued to botch it from there.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
You know. They restaged the crime.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Scene a few days later so they could take crime
scene photos. The kids were taken from the burger chef,
but they were actually discovered about half an hour away
in a warded area in Johnson County. There were things
taken from that site in Johnson County. There were police
that were fired later for being drunk on the job.
And the whole thing was just a complete mess.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I think like originally, you know, first forty eight hours,
which is obviously we know now the most important in
an investigation. I think, you know, they were hopeful, you know,
because it was so under resource that you know first
of all, that they did just go off and they
were just going to turn up again. And then I
think that they were hoping then that it would be
kidnapping and there would be a ransom. And then from
(10:03):
there when they found the bodies forty eight hours later,
that's when paddic set in for them that they'd done
the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Do you expand a bit on how the bodies were
found and in what state what had happened to those
four young people.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Danny and Ruth were found very close together, almost touching,
like legs kind of touching. They were both shot in
the back of the head. There was I think two
shots in each of them. And then a little bit
further away, Jane was found stabbed in the heart to
(10:37):
stab wounds in her chest and it appears to be
that that was over the shoulder, so either she was
running or someone came up behind her and surprised her
and she was stabbed twice. And then even further away,
which is an infinite source of conversation between me and
Adam and other people. Mark was found, and he was
found where his back was sort of like laid back
(11:00):
on his legs and he actually drowned on his own blood.
So either he hid a tree branch as he was
running or someone with a baseball bat.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I mean, all murders are horrific, but what you've just
described is horrifying, Like those final moments for those kids
would have been horrendous.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, I mean, you know, we've thought a lot about that.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
It's horrifying and it's confounding as well, because you know,
you've got three different modes of death. It's hard to
make sense of it. It sort of suggests a frenzied attack,
but just don't know exactly what happened once they got
the kids out to Johnson County. Did they take them
out there intending to kill them? Did as you know,
(11:43):
someone in our film says, you know, they went out
there to buy themselves time.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Something went wrong out there. We just don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
But I think what you're describing those last few moments
for the kids haunts us. And you know, we know
obviously for Teresa and Norma it's the stuff of nightmares.
Teresa being Ruth Shelton, one of the victim's sisters, and
Norma is Danny, who was another victim, his mum.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Well, let's focus a little bit more on their lives.
Who were these teenagers? One of them was twenty so
a young woman, Ruth, Mark, Jane, Danny. What do we
know about them as people?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
We've read a lot about them and also like spoken
to their families. So Jane, you know, from all accounts,
was friendly, vivacious, loved animals, loved art, you know, was
working her way up pretty quickly in the Burger chef
you know other burger chefs as well. She'd come from
(12:42):
another store called Plainfield, and you know, was ambitious and
doing really well within that company. Mark was good at school, athletic,
you know, popular, you know from everybody that was spoken
to around, a good guy. Ruth had actually come from
the dunkin Donuts next door where she worked and had
(13:03):
only really just started at the Berger chef. She was
into computers. She probably would have been a pioneer in
that area, you know, because it was the seventies. Danny
was into photography and also wanted to join the Air force.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Your film really tries to focus on these people as people,
not just victims, which is something that in the true
crime genre some creators seem to have gotten a bit
carried away with. Was that a big focus for you guys, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
It was.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
In the course of the research we became quite close with,
in particular Teresa and also Normal. We felt that we
owed it to them, you know, that this film wasn't gratuitous,
that this film was there to memorialize their loved ones,
rather than having them be kind of pawns into something
(13:57):
salacious and gratuitous, you know, something that exploits them for
the sake of entertainment. You know, that was always front
of mind for us, and that's what drove us. So
you know, you'll notice in the film there's really very little,
I mean one sort of description of the death scene,
as Luke said, and other than that, we chose not
to recreate that element of the story out of respect
(14:19):
for them, and I think Teresa says it in the film.
It's so often the boogeymen in these cases that get
notarized and the victims are sort of forgotten, and we
really wanted to sort of flip that on its head,
and that was the focus in the writing.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And how do you cast and film something like this
when you're both based in Australia but you're dealing with
an American crime. How did that process go?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
We cast Australian actors, We cast them out far and wide,
and we lucked out with four sort of early career
actors who were just extraordinary. They worked extensively with a
dialect coach. The Midwestern drawls are really sort of specific
kind of accent. It's not just a straight American accent,
(15:05):
and we had kind of built characters for them, you know,
it was on the page in the script at the.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
End of the day. You know, it was nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
We didn't have a ton of archive family videos or
anything like that, so you know, there was a lot
that was left to them to fill in their mannerisms
things like that. To their great credit, each of the
four actors, Joe's Arta, Sie Randalls, Nya Coffee and DaVita
McKenzie were just incredibly dedicated, so much of themselves, researched,
(15:39):
worked incredibly diligently, and you know it's reflected in their performances.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Does that mean you also created the Burger Chef here
in Australia.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, So we built it in Adelaide. We found an
abandoned Chinese restaurant. The geography was pretty much exactly the
same as the site in Indiana, and so with a
lot of research and an amazing team, we were able
to like gut the building, knockdown walls, put windows in,
(16:09):
andretty much build it down to the cup.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Were there any moments from filming, either with the actors
or with the real people from this story that really
stand out to either of you.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
There's so many.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I think the one that sort of stayed with me
the most was the day that we all interviewed Norma,
who was Danny's mum. She's someone who's you to move on,
sort of had to compartmentalize it, doesn't talk about it
a lot, doesn't do any media. We ended up meeting
her and developing a bit of a rapport and she
ended up agreeing to go on camera. That was a really,
(16:42):
really tough day, particularly given that Danny had called her
that night because somebody else was supposed to come in
and help close. But Danny called his mum that night
and said, hey, you know, can I hang back and
do a couple of extra hours because he was quite
young and supposed to be home by ten thirty. He
called and asked if he could stay back and help
(17:03):
for the extra couple hours pay so he could buy
Christmas presents. They were reluctant, but Danny's mum and his
dad agreed that who would do that and it was
the last time they ever spoke to him. So hearing
her recount that story and seeing just the guilt and
the trauma was a really tough day.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You're listening to true Crime Conversations with me, Jemma Bass.
I'm speaking with Luke Linderman and Adam Camian about the
Speedway murders. Well, there are a number of witnesses to
the night in question that you've spoken to. I want
(17:46):
to focus firstly on the two people that gave the
descriptions that ended up being widely circulated at the time. Luke,
what kind of description did they give? Who were police
and the public being told to look out for?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So there were two witnesses that were behind the dunkin
Donuts or sort of like on that there was a
train line behind and they were approached by two men
who told them to kind of move on. One of
the men was long haired with a beard, and the
other was clean shaven with shorter, blonde hair, which is
basically like describing every man in seventy. Subsequently, they then
(18:25):
did police sketches based on their descriptions, and then also
these really weird busts that were made out of clay,
like I think it was one of the detective's nieces
who went to art school, and they're like synonymous with
this case. They are really very freaky and out there.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
I was going to say they look like an art project,
and interestingly they are.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It's worth googling for people who are listening, because it
really is quite wild that anyone would release these two
ridiculous busts to the public, and then they were put on.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Public display like in mauls for people to kind of
walk past and look at and then find those two people.
So that was quite unique. Actually, that was one of
the first things that I saw when I was researching
the case and kind of draw into it that these
busts were, you know, what was given to the public Adam.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
One of the early prominent theories was that these four
became victims of a local robbery gang. Can you talk
us through who they were, what were they doing at
the time.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, this was a crew of guys from around the
Johnson County area who had been robbing KFC's other fast
food restaurants, and in particular there were a few burger
chefs that they knocked over as well. It was a
theory that came from Indiana State Police detective at a
(19:46):
time called Ken York, and it's a theory that some
people in law enforcement and others still believe is the answer.
I think if you knew nothing about this case and
you kind of came to the robber gang theory, which
is what we've called it in the film, it's incredibly compelling.
It's very convincing. We think that there are some holes
(20:07):
in it. People always say that the mo of the
robber gang coming in through the back door at closing
when somebody was taking out the trash. The reality is
nobody knows that, and yes, the back door was found
a jar, But how the kids were taken out of
the restaurant is a complete mystery. Because this is something
that we sort of try to address in the film.
(20:27):
The hours between about eleven thirty when we believe the
kids were taken and sort of roughly one thirty am
the next morning when shots are heard out at Johnson
County is kind of this black hole in time that
you people speculate over endlessly. And the robber gang is
one of the more convincing theories that you hear.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Luke tell me about Donald Forrester. How did he become
involved in this case?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Donald Forrester was a known bad actor in the area
who was in jail for a violent rape where he
was serving ninety five years. He came to police attention
and then subsequently confess twice, recounted twice. We played some
(21:13):
of the second confession in the film where it feels
like he's being led. You know, some of his answers
don't really kind of correlate with how the bots were
actually found, and you know, the talk was that, you know,
he was actually shown into the war room and kind
(21:33):
of got to see a lot of the crime saying
photographs before he had his confession. So in the end
recounted for the second time, and then they didn't have
enough to prosecute, so it was pretty much dropped.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
But why would he want to confess to a crime
he didn't do.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
He was in a pretty bad prison at the time
and wanted to be moved, and I think through the
kind of police leverage, they're going to move him into
like a nicer, cushier prison. So you know, he felt like,
you know, if he gave this confession that you know,
better treatment.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Adam, it's kind of obvious to look at the victims
themselves and see whether there's any possible links there to
see whether you know they could have enemies or anyone
potentially out to get them. What were you able to
find out about that? I understand that there was a
bit of a focus on Mark for a second, and
then a lot of focus on Jane and her family.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Both Mark and Jane had brothers who had their problems
with the law. Jane's brother in particular, who did kind
of fit the description of the bearded man. He had
a sort of shock of brown hair and a beard.
At the time, he was running with a motorcycle gang
called the Sons of Silence and ended up being arrested
(22:50):
for cocaine possession I think at the time, and was
associated with a lot of other bad actors, interestingly, one
of whom was Donald Forrester, we believe, So he's one
that comes up a lot because you often hear speculation
about whether drugs were being dealt out of the burger chef.
Apparently this was not an uncommon thing that they would
(23:12):
move small amounts of marijuana through drive up windows when
people would come to a lot of their food, So
speculation that that was happening. If it was happening, did
Jane know about it? Which kind of snowballed into it
Jane was dealing drugs and ended up in trouble because
of that. This is something that Luke and I go
back and forth on. I'm less convinced about that. I
(23:32):
haven't really seen any evidence that Jane was dealing drugs,
nor have I seen any evidence that Mark was dealing drugs.
So one of the things that people speculated about is,
you know, could it have been drug related but through
James's brother And you know, Charlie Gray, who was dating
Jane at the time that she died, said that, in fact,
she would have tried to protect her brother had that happened,
(23:55):
if it came to that, So you know, was the
debt being collected that night owed by James free Jane's brother?
You know, the other one is Mark's brother, less is
known about him, but he also had his issues and
was in and out of prison.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
There was one eyewitness called Alan who gave actual names
that he says he saw that night, Jeffreed and Tim Willoughby. Adam,
Who were they? And what did Alan say that he
saw that night?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Mary and George who are the teenagers who were sitting
on the tracks. They claim to have seen these two
men that moved them on. But there's only one person
that claims to have seen anything other than that, and
that is Alan Prewitt who turns up drunk to the
dunkin Donuts with a friend, goes outside to get some
(24:56):
heir because he's feeling unwell, and says he sees an
orange van pull up and he recognizes two people. They
are Jeffreed and Tim Willoughby. In terms of what Alan
Prewitt saw, it depends on the day that you talk
to him. Unfortunately, he was, how should we put it,
a bit of an unreliable narrator, to the point where
(25:18):
in nine point eighty one he gave a statement to
Jim Kramer was a detective.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
I had the case for the best part of twenty
five years, I think.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
And that statement drove the investigation from the state police
for a really long time. In talking to us, so
many parts of his story fell apart, and we sort
of gave him the opportunity. We said to him, listen,
because what he claims is that he was kind of
under pressure and felt like a police were going to
pin the crime on him because he had been there.
(25:47):
He was also a kind of near do well. He
said that he just starts making stuff up to sort
of divert their attention somewhere else. So, you know, in
our conversations with him, he ends up walking back almost
all of what he said in that nineteen eighty one statement,
but he maintains and I think in the film he says,
(26:08):
and I will take this to the grave that he
saw that Van and Jeffreed and Tim Willoby, and that's
something that he never walked back. So Jeff Freed and
Tim Willerby were We probably need a separate interview to
talk about Tim Willerby because that's a crazy story. Local
bad actor involved with chop shops. Jeffreed was a local
(26:30):
character who was known as the Mayor of the Snake Pit,
which was sort of a turn speedway's name for the
Indianapolis five hundred race and there's a turn on the
racetrack that in the month of May is like a
kind of party place, and that's called the Snake Pit.
And Jeffreed was the mayor of the Snake Pit. He
was known as a guy who could be violent. He
was known as a guy who would collect debts.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I know you say that Alan might not be the
most credible witness, but he's not the only person that
mentions Jeff. And this is potentially the biggest bombshell from
your documentary. You have a mate of Jeff's who told
you something quite remarkable. Tell me about what Tim told you.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
So Tim dropped a bombshell that Jeff came to him
and had somewhat of a confession that he wanted to
get off his chest. That you know, he was there
that night and subsequently things got out of hand and
he was forced to handle a situation and pretty much
(27:33):
confessed details of what happened that night.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
So he knew kind of what happened to those kids.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, so he was there and was partly responsible and
felt like he needed to get it off his chest
to his very good friend Tim and dropped this bombshell
of a story on him.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
So why had Tim never gone to police with this information?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I mean, he claims that the police never came to him.
He's never seen the police. The police were never interested.
After we filmed this segment, we took him down to
the prosecutor's office and dropped him off and basically waited
for him to go and tell his story. So we
had done everything that we could to give everything over
(28:17):
to the place that we had, including Tim and his
bombshell story.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
It's one thing to want to tell a story like
you guys did. You're making a film about an unsolved case.
But to get information like this that is brand new,
that hasn't been heard by police or anyone. How did
it feel for you in that moment to actually hear
something like this?
Speaker 4 (28:37):
It was exhilarating, if I'm honest.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
It's a real emotional rollercoaster when you're so invested in
something like this. Sometimes it's maddening because you keep coming
up against dead ends were otherwise hopeful. Some days are
the days where you get to speak to someone like
a Tim Boyer, And I remember I had gotten on
to him and he didn't reveal everything to me on
the phone because he was pretty adamant that he wanted
(29:01):
to talk to us face to face to give us
the whole story, but he gave me enough information over
the phone that I remember getting off the phone. You
know it's two am because of the time difference in
calling Luke and saying, hey, I think I know what happened.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
So you know, that was pretty special.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
So where does that leave us in terms of an investigation?
Are police still looking into this? Is it currently still cold?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
The reason that this case is still unsolved, it's partly
because the police watched the investigation early on, but there's
also very very little physical evidence, which makes it extremely challenging.
We know they have tested DNA in the past what
little DNA they did have, and we know that they're
sort of preserving some other DNA in the hope that
(29:46):
technology improves, because when you test a DNA sample often
you destroy that sample, so that don't want to shoot
their shot right now.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
But there's very very little physical evidence, which makes closing
the case challenging.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
What do you think the families hope they're going to
get from sharing their stories with you and from having
this crime retold on such a big platform. Do you
think that they're hopeful that that slim chance of actually
getting a conviction or justice in any way is still
what they're kind of leaning towards.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
They want answers, they want to know, you know, they're
not knowing is the hardest part. People often sort of
throw around the word closure. I think when you lose
a loved one in a fashion as brutal as this,
there's probably not ever really closure. But I think for
some peace of mind, knowing what happened in their final
(30:39):
moments would help. I think that's what they're desperate for.
So our great hope in doing this, and really it's
kind of been one of the driving factors is that
someone sitting somewhere will see this and call authorities and
it'll be a tip that breaks the case open.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Thanks to Luke Rinderman and Adam camee In for assisting
us to tell this story. True Crime Conversations is a
Mumaier podcast hosted and produced by me above. Thanks so
much for listening. I'll be back next week with another
true Crime Conversation
You're listening to Amma Mea podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges the
traditional owners of land and waters. This podcast was recorded
on It's a Chilly Night in November nineteen seventy eight
in the town of Speedway, Indianapolis, and the four teenagers
on shift at the local burgerschef are starting to clean up.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, Mama, I was just wondering if I could stay
back to help close.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Danny Davis is talking to his mum Norma in the
back room. He's only sixteen and state law dictates that
he's only supposed to work until ten pm, but his manager,
twenty year old Jane Freed, wants him to check with
his parents if he can stay in extra hour or so.
They agree. He joins sixteen year old Mark Flemons and
(00:59):
seventeen year old Ruth Shelton as they go through the
motions of mopping, wiping and packing away. But when their colleague,
fellow teenager Brian Crane, stops by the sh shop just
after midnight to pay his coworkers a visit, he notices
something odd. The lights are on, the door is open,
but there is no one there. Scared, he calls police.
(01:24):
Thank you Police, emergency, but they very quickly decide it's
just a case of a bunch of irresponsible youngsters walking
off the job to go party for the night. It
is a Friday, after all, But none of them return home,
and thirty six hours later police receive a devastating call.
(01:51):
I'm Jemma Bath and this is True Crime Conversations Amoma
mea podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking
to the people who know the most about them. The
bodies of Danny, Jane Mark, and Druth were found two
days after their final shift at Bergershev in late nineteen seven,
twenty miles away in a rural field. They've been shot, stabbed,
(02:16):
and bashed, each of their murders telling its own devastating
tale of the teenager's last terrifying moments alive. They were
all still wearing their orange and brown Burger chef uniforms.
They were all left in the positions they died. Their
deaths shocked their small, tight knit community, but from the
start the police investigation was bungled, and forty years later,
(02:39):
so many questions about that night remain. Ossies Luke Rinderman
and Adam came in are the co writers and directors
of a new documentary drama called The Speedway Murders, which
tries to unpick and unpack the various theories in this case.
They've been working on this investigation for five years, speaking
to families, witnesses, friends, and law enforcement about their recollections.
(03:04):
Both Luke and Adam join us. Now, Adam Luke, you
both live in Australia. This crime happened on the other
side of the world. So what drew you to revisiting
this crime? We'll start with you.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Adam Luke's a true crime tragic to the point where
I worry about him a little bit from time to time.
We had just had some interest in a script that
we'd written and were kind of looking for the next
thing to kind of keep the momentum going. We're big
fans of the period fashion music. For people who are
(03:45):
listening that don't know the crime that films based on
took place in nineteen seventy eight, that was appealing to us.
We discovered that it was unsolved, the investigation was botched,
so it felt like that it hadn't sort of been
given the attention that it should have. So we sort
of thought, well, maybe if we do a deep dive,
we can uncover some stuff. So we sort of went
down this rabbit hole and never really emerged.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Luke, is there a reason you didn't decid had to
go down a more Australian unsolved crime.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I mean, there's definitely Australian unsolved crimes that we're interested in.
But you know, we were looking all over the world,
and you know, there was just a certain tragedy to
the fact that it wasn't solved, and you know, there
was four people at the center, of young people that
nothing had been done about, and you know, the families
not knowing, and so yeah, it just kind of like
(04:34):
it hit us, and as Adam said, we never really
come up from it.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
The crime itself happened on the same weekend as the
Jonestown massacre, so it had always kind of gotten short shrift.
It never really got the attention that it deserved, which
was another thing that sort of enticed us.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Before we get more into the crime, I'd love to
get a bit more background on you two. You guys
have known each other for a long time, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
It's true we were introduced by a mutual friend in
I think nineteen eighty nine, so we've kind of been
really tight ever since.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
What's it like working on a project this big, this
in depth, this kind of gruesome with your best mete.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
It's a great friendship tester.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
It can be maddening at times. I mean we do
piss each other off at times, and it is definitely
a tester and you know, going over and doing you know,
various trips to Indianapolis and staying very closely together, you know,
does test the friendship. We never fight about anything not creative.
It's always creative issues. So it's never like anything about
(05:40):
the person. It's just you know, we're both so passionate
about it.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
The burger chef we're talking about is in a place
called Speedway in Indianapolis, Adam, what's that part of America?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Like? It's Midwest, so it's sort of in the heartland.
You know, most people when they go and visit America,
they don't tend to go to the Midwest. They go
to the coasts, you know, sort of LA or New
York or you know, maybe a Chicago or something like that,
which actually is just kind of on top of Indiana
where this is. In a lot of ways, it's the
real America. Indianapolis is kind of a small town. I
(06:11):
think there's under a million people there, and Speedway is
kind of a town within Indianapolis, a suburb within Indianapolis.
I guess they're an extremely hospitable people, and you know,
if you sort of venture outside the city, it's a
lot of cornfields and diners and that sort of typical
(06:33):
Middle America.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You've mentioned that we're talking nineteen seventy eight, and around
the time of this crime, there had actually been quite
a few violent incidents. Can you set that scene for us?
Speaker 4 (06:44):
So Speedway is this little enclave.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I guess that, by all reports was kind of a
sleepy little hamlet. People didn't tend to lock their doors.
It was a safe place to grow up. It was
an autoparts industry, you know, it was the sort of
economic driver. Something happened in the late seventies. This kind
of hell mouth opens in Speedway, and all of a sudden,
(07:08):
we've got bike gangs, I've got drugs, we've got violent crime, murder,
and a lot of these things play into the theory
surrounding what happened at the Burgershev and in a lot
of ways, it's quite maddening when you're trying to investigate
a crime because there were so many bad actors in
(07:29):
Speedway at the time, you know, chop shops as well,
so places that would sort of steal cars and piece
them out, that it's kind of hard to narrow the field.
It's hard to kind of rule anybody out when you
look at people that you think may have been capable
of something as heinous as the quadruple murder of four
kids in Speedway specifically at the time, there were plenty
(07:51):
of people with form.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
How was the initial disappearance of these four young people
discovered on that night or on that following morning in
November nineteen seventy eight, there.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Was an employee that was working there that went out
on a date with another employee, and as he dropped
his date off, he went back to see if they
needed help closing and came in the back door and
then subsequently found it open, and then went in and
saw that the safe had been ransacked and some things
were sort of like at place, and he rang the manager,
(08:26):
and then the manager rang police, and then police came down.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And what did they do? Did they move quickly? Did
they ignore it?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
So in their infinite wisdom they let them reopen the
restaurant the next day for business as usual, hoping that
the kids had just kind of taken the money and
gone off to party.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
In twenty twenty four, it's hard to comprehend that revisiting
that yourselves. Is that like a normal thing to do
in policing in the late seventies to just kind of
ignore something that looks quite sinister and a bit like
a crime scene.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
I think everybody accepts now.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
It was a mistake that kind of hamstrung the case
really speed made police at the time. Remember, is kind
of a small town, and even though there was a
lot of violent they wouldn't have had to deal with
many quadruple murders. And I think they just watched it
and continued to botch it from there.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
You know. They restaged the crime.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Scene a few days later so they could take crime
scene photos. The kids were taken from the burger chef,
but they were actually discovered about half an hour away
in a warded area in Johnson County. There were things
taken from that site in Johnson County. There were police
that were fired later for being drunk on the job.
And the whole thing was just a complete mess.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I think like originally, you know, first forty eight hours,
which is obviously we know now the most important in
an investigation. I think, you know, they were hopeful, you know,
because it was so under resource that you know first
of all, that they did just go off and they
were just going to turn up again. And then I
think that they were hoping then that it would be
kidnapping and there would be a ransom. And then from
(10:03):
there when they found the bodies forty eight hours later,
that's when paddic set in for them that they'd done
the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Do you expand a bit on how the bodies were
found and in what state what had happened to those
four young people.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Danny and Ruth were found very close together, almost touching,
like legs kind of touching. They were both shot in
the back of the head. There was I think two
shots in each of them. And then a little bit
further away, Jane was found stabbed in the heart to
(10:37):
stab wounds in her chest and it appears to be
that that was over the shoulder, so either she was
running or someone came up behind her and surprised her
and she was stabbed twice. And then even further away,
which is an infinite source of conversation between me and
Adam and other people. Mark was found, and he was
found where his back was sort of like laid back
(11:00):
on his legs and he actually drowned on his own blood.
So either he hid a tree branch as he was
running or someone with a baseball bat.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I mean, all murders are horrific, but what you've just
described is horrifying, Like those final moments for those kids
would have been horrendous.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, I mean, you know, we've thought a lot about that.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
It's horrifying and it's confounding as well, because you know,
you've got three different modes of death. It's hard to
make sense of it. It sort of suggests a frenzied attack,
but just don't know exactly what happened once they got
the kids out to Johnson County. Did they take them
out there intending to kill them? Did as you know,
(11:43):
someone in our film says, you know, they went out
there to buy themselves time.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Something went wrong out there. We just don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
But I think what you're describing those last few moments
for the kids haunts us. And you know, we know
obviously for Teresa and Norma it's the stuff of nightmares.
Teresa being Ruth Shelton, one of the victim's sisters, and
Norma is Danny, who was another victim, his mum.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Well, let's focus a little bit more on their lives.
Who were these teenagers? One of them was twenty so
a young woman, Ruth, Mark, Jane, Danny. What do we
know about them as people?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
We've read a lot about them and also like spoken
to their families. So Jane, you know, from all accounts,
was friendly, vivacious, loved animals, loved art, you know, was
working her way up pretty quickly in the Burger chef
you know other burger chefs as well. She'd come from
(12:42):
another store called Plainfield, and you know, was ambitious and
doing really well within that company. Mark was good at school, athletic,
you know, popular, you know from everybody that was spoken
to around, a good guy. Ruth had actually come from
the dunkin Donuts next door where she worked and had
(13:03):
only really just started at the Berger chef. She was
into computers. She probably would have been a pioneer in
that area, you know, because it was the seventies. Danny
was into photography and also wanted to join the Air force.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Your film really tries to focus on these people as people,
not just victims, which is something that in the true
crime genre some creators seem to have gotten a bit
carried away with. Was that a big focus for you guys, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
It was.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
In the course of the research we became quite close with,
in particular Teresa and also Normal. We felt that we
owed it to them, you know, that this film wasn't gratuitous,
that this film was there to memorialize their loved ones,
rather than having them be kind of pawns into something
(13:57):
salacious and gratuitous, you know, something that exploits them for
the sake of entertainment. You know, that was always front
of mind for us, and that's what drove us. So
you know, you'll notice in the film there's really very little,
I mean one sort of description of the death scene,
as Luke said, and other than that, we chose not
to recreate that element of the story out of respect
(14:19):
for them, and I think Teresa says it in the film.
It's so often the boogeymen in these cases that get
notarized and the victims are sort of forgotten, and we
really wanted to sort of flip that on its head,
and that was the focus in the writing.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And how do you cast and film something like this
when you're both based in Australia but you're dealing with
an American crime. How did that process go?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
We cast Australian actors, We cast them out far and wide,
and we lucked out with four sort of early career
actors who were just extraordinary. They worked extensively with a
dialect coach. The Midwestern drawls are really sort of specific
kind of accent. It's not just a straight American accent,
(15:05):
and we had kind of built characters for them, you know,
it was on the page in the script at the.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
End of the day. You know, it was nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
We didn't have a ton of archive family videos or
anything like that, so you know, there was a lot
that was left to them to fill in their mannerisms
things like that. To their great credit, each of the
four actors, Joe's Arta, Sie Randalls, Nya Coffee and DaVita
McKenzie were just incredibly dedicated, so much of themselves, researched,
(15:39):
worked incredibly diligently, and you know it's reflected in their performances.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Does that mean you also created the Burger Chef here
in Australia.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, So we built it in Adelaide. We found an
abandoned Chinese restaurant. The geography was pretty much exactly the
same as the site in Indiana, and so with a
lot of research and an amazing team, we were able
to like gut the building, knockdown walls, put windows in,
(16:09):
andretty much build it down to the cup.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Were there any moments from filming, either with the actors
or with the real people from this story that really
stand out to either of you.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
There's so many.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I think the one that sort of stayed with me
the most was the day that we all interviewed Norma,
who was Danny's mum. She's someone who's you to move on,
sort of had to compartmentalize it, doesn't talk about it
a lot, doesn't do any media. We ended up meeting
her and developing a bit of a rapport and she
ended up agreeing to go on camera. That was a really,
(16:42):
really tough day, particularly given that Danny had called her
that night because somebody else was supposed to come in
and help close. But Danny called his mum that night
and said, hey, you know, can I hang back and
do a couple of extra hours because he was quite
young and supposed to be home by ten thirty. He
called and asked if he could stay back and help
(17:03):
for the extra couple hours pay so he could buy
Christmas presents. They were reluctant, but Danny's mum and his
dad agreed that who would do that and it was
the last time they ever spoke to him. So hearing
her recount that story and seeing just the guilt and
the trauma was a really tough day.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You're listening to true Crime Conversations with me, Jemma Bass.
I'm speaking with Luke Linderman and Adam Camian about the
Speedway murders. Well, there are a number of witnesses to
the night in question that you've spoken to. I want
(17:46):
to focus firstly on the two people that gave the
descriptions that ended up being widely circulated at the time. Luke,
what kind of description did they give? Who were police
and the public being told to look out for?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So there were two witnesses that were behind the dunkin
Donuts or sort of like on that there was a
train line behind and they were approached by two men
who told them to kind of move on. One of
the men was long haired with a beard, and the
other was clean shaven with shorter, blonde hair, which is
basically like describing every man in seventy. Subsequently, they then
(18:25):
did police sketches based on their descriptions, and then also
these really weird busts that were made out of clay,
like I think it was one of the detective's nieces
who went to art school, and they're like synonymous with
this case. They are really very freaky and out there.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
I was going to say they look like an art project,
and interestingly they are.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It's worth googling for people who are listening, because it
really is quite wild that anyone would release these two
ridiculous busts to the public, and then they were put on.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Public display like in mauls for people to kind of
walk past and look at and then find those two people.
So that was quite unique. Actually, that was one of
the first things that I saw when I was researching
the case and kind of draw into it that these
busts were, you know, what was given to the public Adam.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
One of the early prominent theories was that these four
became victims of a local robbery gang. Can you talk
us through who they were, what were they doing at
the time.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, this was a crew of guys from around the
Johnson County area who had been robbing KFC's other fast
food restaurants, and in particular there were a few burger
chefs that they knocked over as well. It was a
theory that came from Indiana State Police detective at a
(19:46):
time called Ken York, and it's a theory that some
people in law enforcement and others still believe is the answer.
I think if you knew nothing about this case and
you kind of came to the robber gang theory, which
is what we've called it in the film, it's incredibly compelling.
It's very convincing. We think that there are some holes
(20:07):
in it. People always say that the mo of the
robber gang coming in through the back door at closing
when somebody was taking out the trash. The reality is
nobody knows that, and yes, the back door was found
a jar, But how the kids were taken out of
the restaurant is a complete mystery. Because this is something
that we sort of try to address in the film.
(20:27):
The hours between about eleven thirty when we believe the
kids were taken and sort of roughly one thirty am
the next morning when shots are heard out at Johnson
County is kind of this black hole in time that
you people speculate over endlessly. And the robber gang is
one of the more convincing theories that you hear.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Luke tell me about Donald Forrester. How did he become
involved in this case?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Donald Forrester was a known bad actor in the area
who was in jail for a violent rape where he
was serving ninety five years. He came to police attention
and then subsequently confess twice, recounted twice. We played some
(21:13):
of the second confession in the film where it feels
like he's being led. You know, some of his answers
don't really kind of correlate with how the bots were
actually found, and you know, the talk was that, you know,
he was actually shown into the war room and kind
(21:33):
of got to see a lot of the crime saying
photographs before he had his confession. So in the end
recounted for the second time, and then they didn't have
enough to prosecute, so it was pretty much dropped.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
But why would he want to confess to a crime
he didn't do.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
He was in a pretty bad prison at the time
and wanted to be moved, and I think through the
kind of police leverage, they're going to move him into
like a nicer, cushier prison. So you know, he felt like,
you know, if he gave this confession that you know,
better treatment.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Adam, it's kind of obvious to look at the victims
themselves and see whether there's any possible links there to
see whether you know they could have enemies or anyone
potentially out to get them. What were you able to
find out about that? I understand that there was a
bit of a focus on Mark for a second, and
then a lot of focus on Jane and her family.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Both Mark and Jane had brothers who had their problems
with the law. Jane's brother in particular, who did kind
of fit the description of the bearded man. He had
a sort of shock of brown hair and a beard.
At the time, he was running with a motorcycle gang
called the Sons of Silence and ended up being arrested
(22:50):
for cocaine possession I think at the time, and was
associated with a lot of other bad actors, interestingly, one
of whom was Donald Forrester, we believe, So he's one
that comes up a lot because you often hear speculation
about whether drugs were being dealt out of the burger chef.
Apparently this was not an uncommon thing that they would
(23:12):
move small amounts of marijuana through drive up windows when
people would come to a lot of their food, So
speculation that that was happening. If it was happening, did
Jane know about it? Which kind of snowballed into it
Jane was dealing drugs and ended up in trouble because
of that. This is something that Luke and I go
back and forth on. I'm less convinced about that. I
(23:32):
haven't really seen any evidence that Jane was dealing drugs,
nor have I seen any evidence that Mark was dealing drugs.
So one of the things that people speculated about is,
you know, could it have been drug related but through
James's brother And you know, Charlie Gray, who was dating
Jane at the time that she died, said that, in fact,
she would have tried to protect her brother had that happened,
(23:55):
if it came to that, So you know, was the
debt being collected that night owed by James free Jane's brother?
You know, the other one is Mark's brother, less is
known about him, but he also had his issues and
was in and out of prison.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
There was one eyewitness called Alan who gave actual names
that he says he saw that night, Jeffreed and Tim Willoughby. Adam,
Who were they? And what did Alan say that he
saw that night?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Mary and George who are the teenagers who were sitting
on the tracks. They claim to have seen these two
men that moved them on. But there's only one person
that claims to have seen anything other than that, and
that is Alan Prewitt who turns up drunk to the
dunkin Donuts with a friend, goes outside to get some
(24:56):
heir because he's feeling unwell, and says he sees an
orange van pull up and he recognizes two people. They
are Jeffreed and Tim Willoughby. In terms of what Alan
Prewitt saw, it depends on the day that you talk
to him. Unfortunately, he was, how should we put it,
a bit of an unreliable narrator, to the point where
(25:18):
in nine point eighty one he gave a statement to
Jim Kramer was a detective.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
I had the case for the best part of twenty
five years, I think.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
And that statement drove the investigation from the state police
for a really long time. In talking to us, so
many parts of his story fell apart, and we sort
of gave him the opportunity. We said to him, listen,
because what he claims is that he was kind of
under pressure and felt like a police were going to
pin the crime on him because he had been there.
(25:47):
He was also a kind of near do well. He
said that he just starts making stuff up to sort
of divert their attention somewhere else. So, you know, in
our conversations with him, he ends up walking back almost
all of what he said in that nineteen eighty one statement,
but he maintains and I think in the film he says,
(26:08):
and I will take this to the grave that he
saw that Van and Jeffreed and Tim Willoby, and that's
something that he never walked back. So Jeff Freed and
Tim Willerby were We probably need a separate interview to
talk about Tim Willerby because that's a crazy story. Local
bad actor involved with chop shops. Jeffreed was a local
(26:30):
character who was known as the Mayor of the Snake Pit,
which was sort of a turn speedway's name for the
Indianapolis five hundred race and there's a turn on the
racetrack that in the month of May is like a
kind of party place, and that's called the Snake Pit.
And Jeffreed was the mayor of the Snake Pit. He
was known as a guy who could be violent. He
was known as a guy who would collect debts.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I know you say that Alan might not be the
most credible witness, but he's not the only person that
mentions Jeff. And this is potentially the biggest bombshell from
your documentary. You have a mate of Jeff's who told
you something quite remarkable. Tell me about what Tim told you.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
So Tim dropped a bombshell that Jeff came to him
and had somewhat of a confession that he wanted to
get off his chest. That you know, he was there
that night and subsequently things got out of hand and
he was forced to handle a situation and pretty much
(27:33):
confessed details of what happened that night.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
So he knew kind of what happened to those kids.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, so he was there and was partly responsible and
felt like he needed to get it off his chest
to his very good friend Tim and dropped this bombshell
of a story on him.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
So why had Tim never gone to police with this information?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I mean, he claims that the police never came to him.
He's never seen the police. The police were never interested.
After we filmed this segment, we took him down to
the prosecutor's office and dropped him off and basically waited
for him to go and tell his story. So we
had done everything that we could to give everything over
(28:17):
to the place that we had, including Tim and his
bombshell story.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
It's one thing to want to tell a story like
you guys did. You're making a film about an unsolved case.
But to get information like this that is brand new,
that hasn't been heard by police or anyone. How did
it feel for you in that moment to actually hear
something like this?
Speaker 4 (28:37):
It was exhilarating, if I'm honest.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
It's a real emotional rollercoaster when you're so invested in
something like this. Sometimes it's maddening because you keep coming
up against dead ends were otherwise hopeful. Some days are
the days where you get to speak to someone like
a Tim Boyer, And I remember I had gotten on
to him and he didn't reveal everything to me on
the phone because he was pretty adamant that he wanted
(29:01):
to talk to us face to face to give us
the whole story, but he gave me enough information over
the phone that I remember getting off the phone. You
know it's two am because of the time difference in
calling Luke and saying, hey, I think I know what happened.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
So you know, that was pretty special.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
So where does that leave us in terms of an investigation?
Are police still looking into this? Is it currently still cold?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
The reason that this case is still unsolved, it's partly
because the police watched the investigation early on, but there's
also very very little physical evidence, which makes it extremely challenging.
We know they have tested DNA in the past what
little DNA they did have, and we know that they're
sort of preserving some other DNA in the hope that
(29:46):
technology improves, because when you test a DNA sample often
you destroy that sample, so that don't want to shoot
their shot right now.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
But there's very very little physical evidence, which makes closing
the case challenging.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
What do you think the families hope they're going to
get from sharing their stories with you and from having
this crime retold on such a big platform. Do you
think that they're hopeful that that slim chance of actually
getting a conviction or justice in any way is still
what they're kind of leaning towards.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
They want answers, they want to know, you know, they're
not knowing is the hardest part. People often sort of
throw around the word closure. I think when you lose
a loved one in a fashion as brutal as this,
there's probably not ever really closure. But I think for
some peace of mind, knowing what happened in their final
(30:39):
moments would help. I think that's what they're desperate for.
So our great hope in doing this, and really it's
kind of been one of the driving factors is that
someone sitting somewhere will see this and call authorities and
it'll be a tip that breaks the case open.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Thanks to Luke Rinderman and Adam camee In for assisting
us to tell this story. True Crime Conversations is a
Mumaier podcast hosted and produced by me above. Thanks so
much for listening. I'll be back next week with another
true Crime Conversation
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