The Speedway Murders: Australian filmmakers tackle 1978 US cold case

A new Australian film attempts to unravel a 45-year-old US cold case. At the end of their Friday night shift in 1978 four young workers at a burger restaurant in Speedway, Indiana went missing.

At first police thought they had taken the petty cash and gone partying. But they did not appear the next morning.

By Sunday, the bodies of Jayne Friedt, Daniel Davis, Mark Flemmonds and Ruth Ellen Shelton had been found in the woods 30km away.

The Burger Chef Murders, as the case came to be known, was never solved - although there were suspects.

Australian filmmakers Luke Rynderman and Adam Kamien have tried to piece together what happened that night, interviewing witnesses, police officers and family members.

Their film, The Speedway Murders, recreates the late '70s era - with young Kiwi and Australian actors portraying the victims who discuss theories about the crime among themselves and directly to camera.

Once they started researching the case they fell down a rabbit hole, Kamien said.

"There were a couple of things about the case that piqued our interest. One we're big fans of that period, fashion, the music, it's obviously an extremely compelling mystery, it's unsolved and the investigation had been botched so badly."

The mystery at the heart of the case wawhat happened in the two hours between the four disappearing and shots being heard 30km away, Kamien said.

"We know what happened in the lead up to about 11:30pm on November 17, 1978. Jane, Ruth, Mark and Danny were working the late shift at a Burger Chef, which was kind of a McDonald's-type fast food burger restaurant that was mostly in the Midwest at the time, it was a was a big chain.

"They vanish, and there are shots heard out at Johnson County, which is about 30 kilometres away at about 1:30am on the 18th. So, the mystery is, is what happened in those two hours?"

The four youngsters were found brutally murdered, Rynderman said.

"Ruth and Danny were shot execution style in the back of the head, and then a little bit away from that was Jane, who was stabbed twice in the chest area, one piercing her heart, we speculate from behind so over the right shoulder, maybe as she was running away.

"And then the real mystery is Mark. He was found a bit further away, and he was found lying back kind of on his legs, and he asphyxiated on his own blood.

"So, the speculation is that he either ran and hit a tree branch or was bludgeoned by someone, was beaten with a baseball bat or brass knuckles."

The film puts the four youngsters at the heart of the film, Kamien said.

"We wanted these kids to be something other than just a footnote in a really gruesome crime.

"So often in these cases, it's the boogeyman who get the attention. And there are plenty of boogeymen in this story. We really wanted to make sure that we could present these, these kids as all American Midwesterners with their whole lives ahead of them."

The investigation was botched from the outset. The police initially thought that the four had run off with the petty cash, Rynderman said.

"They allowed the people working in the restaurant to open the restaurant the next day, essentially destroying the crime scene.

"Then they thought it was a kidnapping and didn't act very quickly. And then 48 hours later, when they found the bodies, by then evidence was lost."

The situation was further complicated by the fact the crime and the last sighting were in different jurisdictions, he said.

"None of the police agencies worked together. They all wanted to be the hero that solved it themselves. So, none of them really shared information."

They turned an abandoned Adelaide building into a 1978 Indiana burger joint, sourcing original uniforms from collectors in the US.

They are hoping the film will encourage someone with information to come forward.

"I believe that there is someone out there that knows something and hasn't come forward yet," Kamien said.

The Speedway Murders is as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival.