Key Takeaways

• Born on December 31, 1961, to parents Robert and Blondell Flemmonds, Mark was one of five children in the family.
• Friends and classmates remembered the fun-loving, friendly teen who was a Speedway High School band member.
• Flemmonds’ body was approximately 150 feet away – he had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and died from asphyxiation in his own blood, likely after running into a tree.

On November 17, 1978, 16-year-old Mark Sylvester Flemmonds went to work his shift at the Burger Chef restaurant on Crawfordsville Road in Speedway, Indiana.

Tragically, it would be the last time his family saw him alive.

Flemmonds, along with fellow employees Jayne Friedt, 20, Ruth Shelton, 17, and Daniel Davis, 16, disappeared that night after closing up the restaurant.

Their bodies were discovered two days later in a remote wooded area of Johnson County.

How The Four Victims Met Their Demise?

Shelton and Davis had both been shot multiple times.

Friedt was found stabbed to death nearby, with the knife blade still in her chest.

Flemmonds’ body was approximately 150 feet away – he had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and died from asphyxiation in his own blood, likely after running into a tree.

The disturbing crime shook the local Speedway community.

Around $581 was reported missing from the restaurant cash registers, leading investigators to suspect the motive was a robbery.

However, over four decades later, the culprit of the horrifying “Burger Chef Murders” has never been caught.

The Promising Life of Mark Flemmonds Tragically Cut Short

Born on December 31, 1961, to parents Robert and Blondell Flemmonds, Mark was one of five children in the family.

They were one of the few African American families living in the predominantly white Speedway area at the time.

Friends and classmates remembered the fun-loving, friendly teen who was a Speedway High School band member.

His parents, who were devoted Jehovah’s Witnesses, largely kept Mark and his siblings inside their apartment complex during their free time.

The night he was abducted, Mark had agreed to cover a co-worker’s shift, planning to walk home afterward with a friend who was across the street at a local teen club. Sadly, he never made it home.

In the 1978-79 school yearbook, a classmate memorialized Mark’s “smiling face,” “laughing eyes,” and keen sense of humor, writing, “he cheered others.”

His life was senselessly cut short at just 16 years old.

A Lingering Mystery On The Burger Chef Murder Case

Now, over 45 years later, the devastating Burger Chef murders remain one of Indiana’s most baffling cold cases.

Police have pursued several potential suspects over the decades without ever obtaining enough evidence to make an arrest.

For the families of the four victims, including Mark Flemmonds’ loved ones, the unsolved crime continues to be a source of immense pain and unanswered questions about the tragic events of that fateful night in 1978.

In Case You Didn’t Know

• Mark Flemmonds’ father, Rivert C Flemmonds, was born on December 27, 1971, and passed away on December 25, 1991.
• His mother, Blondell J Sewell Flemmonds, was born in March 1934 and passed away on February 5, 2011.
• His late sister Deborah M Flemmonds Griffin was a manager at Gringo’s Taco House.