You Never Can Forget: An Officer's Perspective on Night One of the Case

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[00:02:14] using 100% recycled plastic. New bottles using no new plastic except the caps and labels. Learn more at madetoberemade.org. Content warning, this episode contains discussion of murder. The case that we come back to more than any other is the Burger Chef murders.

[00:02:34] We have worked together on this case longer than on any other and it will continue to be a major focus for us until the families get the answers they've been waiting on for so long. That case

[00:02:47] happened in Speedway, Indiana, a community perhaps best known for hosting the Indianapolis 500 race every May. One night, all the way back in November of 1978, Jane Freit, Ruth Shelton, Dan Davis, and Mark Flemons, four young employees of the Speedway Burger Chef fast food restaurant,

[00:03:08] vanished not long after closing time. Their bodies were found a couple of days later in a wooded area about half an hour's drive away. No one has ever been criminally charged in connection

[00:03:19] with the crime. If you've listened to any of our earlier coverage of this case, you will know that besides the big mystery of who did this, there are many other mysteries associated with this crime.

[00:03:32] For instance, at about the same time the four employees were being taken from the Burger Chef, a man we've called Terry was pulled over by the police a short distance away. Terry actually had

[00:03:44] a loaded .38 gun with him in his vehicle, but he tossed it out the car window at some point as the police approached. Why was Terry pulled over and did he have any involvement with the murders?

[00:03:57] And then there is the Burger Chef itself. After the police were notified that four employees had disappeared, they failed to treat the restaurant as a crime scene. Other employees were allowed to come in and clean it, potentially causing crucial evidence to be lost forever. Is it possible to

[00:04:13] get any sort of insight into why the police on the scene chose to allow that to happen? To find out, we recently got an opportunity to talk with someone who's never before spoken

[00:04:24] publicly about this case. Thomas Pierce was a police officer who not only was there when Terry's car was pulled over, but who then got the call to head over and see what was happening at the Burger Chef.

[00:04:37] For the first time, we're going to be able to hear about some of the crucial law enforcement related events of that night from a man who personally experienced them. My name is Anya Kane.

[00:04:49] I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet. And this is You Never Can Forget, an officer's perspective on night one of

[00:05:08] the case. First of all, thank you so much for speaking with us today. We really appreciate it. I guess maybe to get started, can you tell us a bit about yourself and sort of your professional

[00:06:04] background? What's your name and where were you in 1978? Okay, my name is Tom Pierce. It's actually Thomas Pierce. I joined the Speedway Police Department in 1976 as a reserve officer and then

[00:06:19] got hired full time January 1st of 79. So I had two years as a reserve officer and then 10 years as a full time officer. Absolutely. And what made you want to join the police department?

[00:06:37] Well, my older brother, I think I told you about him. He was in the IU program, forensic science they called it. And I really didn't know what... At first I wanted to be a

[00:06:52] history teacher. And then I realized how much money they make being a teacher. And so I thought maybe we'll change careers here. And so then when I started at IU Indianapolis, IUPUI, I had some

[00:07:08] friends that were in the criminal justice program. So I just kind of veered over in the criminal justice program. And so I got my bachelor's degree in May of 78 with the criminal justice degree. And then, like I said, I got on full time January 1st of 79 Speedway.

[00:07:34] What was it like being a police officer in Speedway in the late 70s? I loved it, except when race time rolled around. I despised the race and all the people brought in

[00:07:48] because I grew up in Speedway. And we always went over the track growing up. We had relatives that come into town. It was the thing. But then when I had to start trying to control these people

[00:08:03] that came into town, because back then estimates between 300,000-400,000 fans would come in for the 500,000 because there was just one race at that time. And so the police, we were outnumbered.

[00:08:20] I don't know what the official ratio was, maybe a thousand to one because we worked with the state police, IPD at the time, Marion County, Speedway. And Georgetown Road was just party city. What was Speedway like back then? How has it changed? How is it different now?

[00:08:45] I thought it was a great town to grow up in. The high school, we had four grades. And I think the most, even with four grades, was close to 800 students. We had close to 200 in our class, a 73. So the school system was great, I thought. Had good teachers.

[00:09:09] Now I'm not saying everybody loved the schools, but I did. We had good teachers, athletics. And most of us lived close enough, at least in grade school, we walked to school. Speedway didn't have buses. And even the grade school, you'd walk home for lunch.

[00:09:34] But then when you got to junior high, that was your first in-school meal. So Speedway junior high was seventh and eighth, and then high school, nine through 12. So I liked it. I mean, most of the people in, most of the kids, their parents worked at Allison's.

[00:10:02] And my dad worked for Indiana Bell. But I don't know what the percentage was, but a lot of kids or parents worked at Allison's, at least their fathers did. So, but that was the main business.

[00:10:17] You know, I know there was a couple other big businesses in Speedway since gone. I mean, the way the town is now, I mean, they got a lot more businesses, more shopping and restaurants and things like that.

[00:10:36] I enjoyed it when 78 rolled around the town, really got a rude awakening. Can you elaborate on that? Okay. Again, I was just a reserve officer when all this started. So the first big the first big incident was the murder of Julia Cyphers, I believe her name is.

[00:11:00] She was pretty much executed in her, at her own house. And I mean, that was a rarity in the town of Speedway to have something like that happen. Julia Cyphers was shot to death in her garage on July 29th, 1978,

[00:11:18] by a man who stopped by her house asking to see some items she'd had at a garage sale. No one has ever been convicted of this crime. For what it's worth, the Cyphers' home was about a three minute drive away from the location of the Burger Chef.

[00:11:32] Around September, the bombing started. I forget how many total bombings we had, but I was on scene, either crowd control or whatever for a couple of those. And it terrorized the town. In the first week of September of 1978,

[00:11:54] eight different bombs went off in different locations around Speedway, Indiana. The last bomb went off in the parking lot of the Speedway High School and seriously injured a man named Carl DeLong. Mr. DeLong later committed suicide. Brett Kimberlin was convicted of crimes related to the bombings.

[00:12:14] Kimberlin was also ordered by a civil court to pay the DeLong family $1.6 million. My brother was in high school at the time, and he was at the school when the one went off in the

[00:12:29] parking lot. And one of the girls in his class, her father was the one that the bomb exploded on. And so it was her mom and dad and a really great family. So that was in September.

[00:12:48] And I had nothing to do with any of the investigations or anything. I'm just seeing this. I did come in and take phone calls during the bombing for tips and stuff like that. And then November 17th of 78 is when the Burger Chef kidnappings and murder came up.

[00:13:10] And you were on duty that night. I was. So let's focus on that and let's do it a little bit at a time because you were involved in a couple of interesting incidents that night. Before we talk about what you were actually

[00:13:24] involved with, it's our understanding there was like a short shift or something that night. I'm thinking there was, but by being a reserve officer, I was assigned to ride with somebody. We didn't have reserves at that time patrolling on their own. So I was riding with another officer,

[00:13:45] Jeff Stagg, that had been on a couple of years. And then I know our corporal at the time was Gary Donaldson. I honestly don't remember who else was working that night, but I'm pretty sure that we did not have full shift that night.

[00:14:03] We wanted to mention here that we have made several attempts to reach out to Jeff Stagg, the officer Thomas rode with that night, and we never heard back from him. After that night in 1978, though, Stagg went on to have a long career in law enforcement.

[00:14:18] According to an article on policeone.com, Stagg stayed with the Speedway Police Department until 1988. In that year, he moved over to the Marion County Sheriff's Department where he remained for 19 years. In 2007, the law enforcement division of the Sheriff's Department merged

[00:14:36] with the Indianapolis Police Department to create the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. According to the IMPD News Twitter account, Officer Stagg retired earlier this year. We hope he will be available at some point to share his memories of November 1978.

[00:14:52] It would mean a lot to the people close to this case. Do you remember what time you went on duty? We work 11 to 7 for late shift. So there were reports that maybe there was a robbery at the American Inn earlier that night,

[00:15:07] so I'm guessing you wouldn't have been... I had not went in on that one, no. Okay, so the first interesting incident you were involved with involved pulling over a driver, and we don't use his real name on the show, at least not yet. Okay.

[00:15:23] So I think we've been referring to him as Terry. Okay. Can you talk about this driver and what you saw and how the incident occurred? Okay. Again, I was riding with Officer Stagg and we were at Cunningham and 21st Street when we first observed this vehicle.

[00:15:43] And my remembrance is he was wearing some sort of stereo headphones while he was driving. I don't remember specific what he was stopped for, but he stopped on 21st Street right off Cunningham Road, right by the corner there.

[00:16:07] And so by being the reserve officer, Jeff Stagg initiated the contact with the person. We did not write him any citation. Conversation was very brief. He was probably stopped for just a couple of minutes. We didn't detect any alcohol coming from the vehicle,

[00:16:31] anything that would red flag him for any further investigation. So he was cut loose. Are you trying to lose weight and feeling like you're getting absolutely nowhere? Well, weight loss can be a uniquely challenging goal, one that leaves many of us feeling isolated and frustrated.

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[00:20:21] and was very drunk and telling a story about how he was going, coming back from his girlfriend and didn't want to get in trouble. Yeah. And what is your, what are your thoughts on that? We definitely did not see him drive through any yards, jump any curbs.

[00:20:38] Like I said, if we would have smelled any kind of alcoholic beverage coming from the vehicle, we would investigate further. I don't remember him saying anything about him sneaking over to his girlfriend's house either. So like I said, contact was short and we cut him loose.

[00:20:59] Would there have been, in your view and your memory, an opportunity for him to have thrown a gun out the window before his interaction with you guys? In hindsight, there would have been. And unfortunately, the lack of observation on our end, if that did in fact happen,

[00:21:21] which we found out later it did happen. We did not see anything thrown out of the vehicle. That we remember. Do you remember anything about Terry's demeanor that night? How he seemed? Like I said, he, nothing that, that we saw red flagged him for anything to

[00:21:44] check him out further. Like I said, if we would have detected any kind of alcoholic beverage or impairment with drugs, we would investigate it further. So normally a guy couldn't talk his way out of something like that by just saying,

[00:21:59] well, I don't want to get in trouble with my girlfriend. No, that's not a good excuse for us. No. Now, unfortunately, I've had the experience of being pulled over for speeding and things like that. And when that happens, typically the police officer who pulls me over, there's

[00:22:13] like a flashing light. There'd been like a flashing light on your vehicle when you pulled him over. We were in a marked vehicle that had lights on top. Guys trying to see if we were driving.

[00:22:24] Guys trying to think what, what your Ford's we were driving Ford's or the officer was. It definitely had lights, lights on top. And for people who aren't really familiar with the area, would it be fair to say that

[00:22:39] 21st and Cunningham is pretty close to the Burger Chef and perhaps those lights could have been observed from the Burger Chef? I believe they, they, the stop where we made the lights could have been reflected off houses and seen in the area, the back of the Burger Chef.

[00:22:59] And then just to go back a little bit, do you, I know you don't know quite why he was pulled over, but would the headphones have been something that you would want to like, would that have been reason enough to be like, what's going on here?

[00:23:11] That struck us as very odd because just common sense would tell you that he couldn't hear any sirens or any kind of emergency vehicle if he had headphones on. And it was unique to me at the time, someone driving with headphones on.

[00:23:28] And then one thing that's always been of interest to us with this, with the Burger Chef case is like sort of the timeline and sort of, you know, I'm sure you don't have any sort of exact time in mind when this stop happened, but estimating about how far

[00:23:43] this was until midnight, like what would be your best guess? For some reason, I'm thinking it was in 15, 20 minutes, maybe. It wasn't a long, long time that I remember between the traffic stop and then getting the call to the Burger Chef.

[00:23:59] So basically stop 10 minutes, then call into the Burger Chef. Give or take, yes. So as you mentioned, you were called that there was something going on with the Burger Chef. Can you tell us what you were told and what you and your partner were told?

[00:24:15] Well, the run came in is that the back door to the restaurant was open and we were to meet one of the employees there that was off duty that had stopped by to help clean up with his friends. And so his name was Brian Kring.

[00:24:38] And so we met him at the back door. And one of the first things I remember him saying to us is that, well, sometimes they go eat breakfast before they start cleaning and then they'll come back and finish cleaning.

[00:24:56] So that's what we were going on initially was that, you know, maybe there maybe they are in fact. Went somewhere to have breakfast and then came back. We're going to come back. Do you remember anything about Brian Kring's demeanor or anything like that that night?

[00:25:14] No, he seemed legit. Concerned for his co-workers. I don't know how much of the inside of the restaurant he had checked prior to our arrival. But I do remember him saying about going going out for breakfast and. He say that was. Bad information.

[00:25:40] And then were there any other people there to meet you there? And did he mention there having been other people earlier in terms of. I do not remember him saying anything about other employees meeting anybody out in the parking lot. I'm going to just say that.

[00:26:01] Officer Stagg that I was with probably did more communication with him than I did by being a reserve officer and officer Stagg being a full time officer. So what happened next? Did you enter the restaurant? Yes, we did. And hindsight is 2020. We found out real fast.

[00:26:24] By by them finding the the gals purses in the office and other things that were observed that this probably wasn't them going out to breakfast. So what transpired, I guess, from the time you guys are called and are on the phone?

[00:26:45] So what transpired, I guess, from the time you guys are called and are on scene to, you know, it being kind of like taken over by a detective? Yeah. I don't I can't really recollect. I believe Corporal Donaldson came because he he would have been the shift supervisor

[00:27:08] at at that particular time. I don't remember seeing a detective while I was there. I do know that other employees from the Burger Chef, I don't know if they were managers or whatever, came in to help see what was actually missing.

[00:27:31] But I had no communication with with him directly. Did the employees who came to see what was missing, did they do any cleaning as well? Eventually they did. Yes. Do you have any recollection as to how the decision was made to allow them to do that?

[00:27:47] I don't know who made the decision, but it was definitely the wrong decision. The crime scene was not protected at all. Number one rule. We we messed up. Do you have any sense of like why that happened or like was it just because there was maybe

[00:28:07] initially the seed planted of maybe this is innocuous? Like I guess I'm just curious about like when things turned into this seems innocuous to this seems highly suspicious something's wrong. Yeah, I don't know the time period.

[00:28:21] I do know that Brian Kring was calling managers again for them to come and see what was missing again. We weren't aware at the time that how the four victims would have left. All this became more apparent later on when somebody had told us that Jane Freed's vehicle

[00:28:48] was no longer on the parking lot that it was in fact gone. The car belonging to Jane Freed was indeed missing from the Burger Chef parking lot. Sometime in the early morning hours, the vehicle was found. The vehicle was discovered a short distance away.

[00:29:05] It was found by a park within sight of the Speedway Police Department. Do you have any other impressions of being in that restaurant or interactions with various people involved in this kind of initial response? Again, hindsight, it's extremely embarrassing what happened.

[00:29:23] It wasn't anything intentional that was done, but basic police procedures were not done that night. I guess the next thing would be the car being discovered or the car being realized to be not there.

[00:29:40] Can you speak about that and what sort of transpired around the car that night? Well, I know that later on that night, the vehicle was, Jane Freed's vehicle was found very close to the police station on 15th Street.

[00:29:55] Actually, you can see the back of the police department building from where her vehicle was found. I believe Corporal Donaldson, while he was patrolling, located the vehicle, but I wasn't at the scene of the vehicle recovery.

[00:30:14] How long were you on the scene and at what time did you sort of leave? That's a good question. I don't, I don't remember. Even after the investigation got started, I was hypnotized by state police personnel

[00:30:35] and nothing that I remembered or recalled, even with the traffic stop or at the scene, I didn't really progress the investigation any further. I mean, I was very limited. I mean, I was happy to give it a shot.

[00:30:57] Never been hypnotized before and state police personnel are very professional and very relaxing while you're hypnotized. But I had nothing in my memory that, oh, wow, that's really good information. It wasn't anything like that. The following day, did you have a shift as well?

[00:31:20] No, usually as a reserve, we worked one shift a month or I'm sorry, one shift a week. And so I was pretty much done until my next shift. So I didn't come on the next day.

[00:31:34] When did you find out that this had progressed from like a disappearance to a homicide investigation? I think most of mine at the time came from media. Since I wasn't involved in any further part of the investigation, I knew they had their hands full.

[00:31:55] Once they realized that the four employees were gone, things just, just unbelievable. It surprised me how it ended up. We didn't, I personally didn't expect it to end that way, but that was just my personal opinion. Understandable given it's a very unusual and brutal crime.

[00:32:23] I was wondering in terms of the aftermath, the reaction within the Speedway Police Department, what was that like? Sort of, I imagine there was a lot of shock. Definitely. Especially when, when the bombings, that was a major investigation with numerous police

[00:32:43] agencies also and manpower, they were just working long, hard hours. And I know at the time, Lieutenant Crafton was the lead investigator for Speedway Police Department. But again, since I wasn't involved in anything else, I wasn't privy to who was doing what where with the other agencies.

[00:33:11] Do you remember approximately when you were hypnotized? I don't. I mean, it was relatively short time, but I don't know specifically. What was that process and experience like and what sort of questions were they trying to ask to get more information on?

[00:33:27] Well, the state police personnel, I wish I knew his name because he was a really great guy. The main thing for being hypnotized is being able to be relaxed and kind of clear your mind of any outside interference.

[00:33:44] And I remember they would ask you questions and to me it felt like the gears were moving really slow and you could like slow motion. Not that they were talking that way, but just my own personal mind.

[00:34:02] And it was very clear that when they asked you a question that you could think rationally. I mean, you weren't going off on some tangent some way. Again, I was just really surprised how relaxed the whole process was.

[00:34:19] And when I was done, they asked me how long I thought I was out. I said about 45 minutes. They said it was no like three hours. So again, it was just amazing experience. I'm just sad that I didn't have anything to further the investigation, especially with

[00:34:41] the vehicle that we stopped with the guy that threw the gun out. It looks like the ISP hypnotists of the time were Joe Rhodes and Brooke Appleby. Are those names? Rhodes, yes. Definitely, yeah. Another thing, we've heard all sorts of rumors about the drug trade in Speedway.

[00:35:03] Were you aware of Speedway having a problem with drugs being sold in the area? I had no firsthand knowledge. I led a pretty sheltered life. Didn't run with any of those crowds. But as far as the Burger Chef, before this night, I had no firsthand knowledge any of

[00:35:23] that was going on. Had you been to the Burger Chef before just as a customer? Oh, absolutely. What about the Dunkin' next door? Was that like a popular place too? You asked me if we like our donuts. Trying to be delicate about it.

[00:35:39] We do like our donuts, yeah. And they were 24 hours. But no, right next door to each other, I didn't know of any issues with employees or anything. I'm curious in terms of the kind of investigation into Terry, the driver, talking about they

[00:36:00] find the gun or the homeowner finds the gun in the yard he's brought in. Did you have any sort of knowledge about any of that? Did you have any sort of knowledge about any of that going on or them looking into him?

[00:36:14] No, I was actually surprised listening to your previous episodes that there was any follow up with him at all, which I thought was great. But I had no knowledge that how much investigation went into him.

[00:36:31] One thing, a sense that we've always gotten has been that at some point pretty early on, state police kind of took over the case to a larger extent. The FBI came in briefly, left, and then it seems like state police is kind of the lead.

[00:36:48] And did you have any sense of how or why that ended up happening so quickly? I don't know how the transfer of investigation procedure went. I just know that from talk with policemen during this time is that I was given the impression that

[00:37:14] because there were so many police agencies involved in this case, that cooperation was lacking between the agencies. And I just kind of got the impression that, well, somebody actually told me this case was a career

[00:37:34] builder and whoever was going to solve this case, they were going to get all the glory. And that's maybe why information between agencies wasn't initially given to the other agencies. I'm curious, and we talked about the ISP getting involved. We hear names like Donovan, Lindsey, Jim Cramer.

[00:37:56] I just was curious if you ever had any interactions with either of them. I did have very limited action with Don Lindsey. And only years later did I have a chance to run into Jim Cramer, but not during the investigation. What were they like? Very, very good guys.

[00:38:17] They were, again, very dedicated in my opinion from what limited contact I had. Don Lindsey seemed very professional, no-nonsense type personality. But again, I didn't know Jim Cramer during the investigation. So I just know later on he was very cordial.

[00:38:39] Just coming from somebody that he didn't know and we just happened to have a chance run into each other. One pervasive rumor that has sort of been around since I think pretty early on is that,

[00:38:53] you know, people kind of look at Burger Chef and how it all happened and they say like there must be some sort of police cover-up going on or something like that.

[00:39:00] And I guess I was just curious, like, what do you make of things like that and how does that play out? I do not see a cover-up. I'd say we saw a screw-up, but not a cover-up. And it still haunts me like I'm sure it does other people.

[00:39:18] The fact that the other officer and I were the first there and it just went downhill from there. And I'm embarrassed to say that that's what happened and shouldn't have happened. But after that night, again, my involvement was almost nil by being a reserve officer.

[00:39:39] But basic police procedure that we should have followed was not done that night. And there's no good excuse for that. Do you have any sort of sense in terms of, I guess, were there tips or tips to be taken

[00:39:59] in terms of, I guess, were there tips that came up over the years when you were still in the department about like what happened or would any leads come in at all? Was it mostly going through state police at that point? Yeah.

[00:40:12] They had set up different task force and everything. So only thing I would hear is if somebody heard something in-house for whatever reason. But again, most of my information would come from the media.

[00:40:27] Do you remember any of those things in-house that might pop up that were interesting or gnarly? No, I do know again for a fact that Bill Kraft and Lieutenant Kraft eventually got assigned back on the road after these investigations. And that Burger Chef case ate him up bad.

[00:40:51] And he used to sit across the street in the Speedway Shopping Center and just stare at the Burger Chef because it bothered him that bad. And I'd have to say when he passed away that that was still a major, major hardship that

[00:41:09] that he couldn't help solve that case. Are you surprised that it remains unsolved to this day? I wish it would be solved. But again, just from pieces that I've picked up over the years, it'd just be speculation on my part.

[00:41:30] You know, I've heard that they've had some good suspects, but due to the flawed crime scene investigation on our part, that no fingerprints, DNA, which was very, I mean, I'm not sure DNA was a tool at that time.

[00:41:50] But unfortunately, the investigators had zero to go on from the crime scene that night. Do you have a sense of like how many people would have been in that crime scene that night looking back, like in terms of the cleaning and all that, like how thorough that would

[00:42:11] have been? Not when I was there night. I don't remember staying there for an extended period of time because we didn't know what we had. We should have known, but we didn't. And so I don't remember being there long enough, excuse me, to actually see a cleaning crew

[00:42:38] come in and sort of get a sense of what was going on. Actually see a cleaning crew come in and start cleaning. I don't remember being there when that happened. Is there anything we haven't asked you about that you'd like to share? No, not really.

[00:42:57] But again, the fact that that crime scene was not protected has bothered me for a long time. Again, it wasn't an intentional botch. It wasn't a cover up. It was just bad police work that night.

[00:43:14] And I regretted that and I hope the families know that there wasn't anything intentional we did that at least I am very sorry that they haven't got justice yet. Tom, we so appreciate you speaking about this and just thank you so much.

[00:43:36] Well, this is I think I told you earlier that this is the first time I've talked to anybody in over 40 years. I mean, once the initial investigation got started and after the hypnosis, I mean, I was not involved in anything.

[00:43:52] So it's brought back a lot of memories and not necessarily good ones. But again, it's I can't even imagine the frustration the families have gone through knowing how bad this started out. Well, thanks. And we really appreciate it. And I'm sure the families also appreciate it.

[00:44:14] I wish I had something to send us in a different direction, but we don't. We want to thank Thomas again for taking the time to share his experience with us. We will continue to cover this case. Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet.

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