You Never Can Forget: The Robberies

Murder Sheet

MurderSheet

True Crime, Murder, Unsolved Case, Killing, Murderer, Cold Case

3.8 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On November 17, 1978, four young workers vanished from a fast food restaurant in Speedway, Indiana. Two days later, their bodies were found in the woods of Johnson County. The Burger Chef murders remain unsolved to this day. We still don't know who killed employees Jayne Friedt, Ruth Shelton, Danny Davis, and Mark Flemmonds, or why.

In this episode of "You Never Can Forget," an investigative miniseries from the Murder Sheet, we'll be sharing the stories of two people who became victims of the robbery gang that former Indiana State Police investigator Stony Vann believes may be responsible for the Burger Chef murders.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Content warning, this episode contains discussion of murder and violent robberies.
0:09.0	On November 17, 1978, a person or persons went to the Speedway Indiana Burger Chef and
0:17.0	abducted the four young employees on duty. Ruth Shelton, Danny Davis, Mark Flemmons and
0:25.3	Jane Freight. Two days later, their bodies were discovered in a wooded area in Johnson County,
0:32.2	some 20 miles away. Ever since then, people have tried to figure out who was responsible for those
0:39.8	deaths and why they might have done it. One of the earliest theories, which still persists to this day,
0:47.6	is that the crime was committed by a gang of robbers, a gang that seemed to target quite a few
0:53.6	burger chef restaurants in the Indianapolis area. The names of the gang members were mentioned in
1:00.6	the press at the time, but for some reason, reporters and other podcasters seemed reluctant to name
1:07.9	them now. Even we declined to name them in the episodes we did about them last year,
1:14.6	but, as we just said, the men's names were printed in the newspapers and they were publicly
1:20.8	identified as suspects. It is also worth noting that, whether they committed the murders or not,
1:27.9	most of them were convicted of other serious crimes, and so we see no need to continue to protect
1:34.0	them by using silly nicknames for them. In other true crime cases, the names of people identified
1:42.4	by police as suspects are shared as a matter of routine in discussions of the case. We believe we
1:49.6	should do the same here. The members of the gang we are discussing today are Timothy Piccione,
1:56.0	who is still alive, and John Deffenbaugh, who was killed back in 2004. According to a story in the
2:04.7	Indianapolis star, Deffenbaugh was homeless. He was shot in the head and his body was discovered in
2:11.9	his truck, which was parked not far from the Indiana state fairgrounds. As far as we can tell,
2:20.3	the murder was never solved. We contacted Piccione and let him know we intended to name him on this
2:29.2	podcast. He was not pleased and sent us the following. I understand to make your podcast more
2:36.6	interesting that you feel the need to use my name. I really wish you wouldn't. I've had people
	...

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