Early in the morning of the 2nd of October 2017, 50-year-old Aaron Friar’s youngest daughters woke up and discovered that their father had gone missing. There were pools of blood on the family’s couch, and there was also no sign of the girls’ older sister Ellie, who was 15 years old. The Friar daughters were terrified, and they called their father’s girlfriend, Michelle Robinson, who immediately called the police.
When law enforcement arrived at the Friar house, they spoke to the two girls, who were eleven and eight years old. The eleven-year-old told the officers that at about 5am that morning, she had woken up to the sound of her father shouting, as well as loud crashing sounds. She hadn’t immediately gotten up to investigate, but when she walked into the dark living room later that morning, she had touched the couch and felt that the fabric was wet. When she turned the light on, she saw that her hand was now covered with fresh blood - and so was the couch.
The detectives asked the girls whether they had heard or seen anybody in the house that morning, and the older sister responded that she’d heard one additional voice: 19-year-old Gavin MacFarlane, who was dating Ellie.
Ellie was completely smitten with her older boyfriend, but her family didn’t feel the same way about Gavin. In fact, they didn’t like him at all. One of Aaron Friar’s friends remembered Aaron describing Gavin as “a bad seed” who was a negative influence on his daughter. Since the young couple had gotten together, Ellie’s grades had reportedly started to slip, and her loved ones believed that Gavin was holding her back. Aaron’s dislike of Gavin had been strong enough that he had recently told Ellie that she was forbidden from continuing to date him. At around the same time, Gavin had made a 911 call, reporting that his girlfriend’s father had showed up at his house and was “threatening to kill him.”
As soon as investigators learned about the history of conflict between Gavin and their two missing people, they became interested in locating him as soon as possible - but they didn’t have to look for long. Shortly afterward, Gavin was seen on the street with two people: a 22-year-old friend, and none other than his 15-year-old girlfriend, Ellie Friar, who wasn’t missing after all. The trio were apprehended and taken in for questioning.
During Ellie’s first police interview, she claimed that her father was “very controlling”, describing him as verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive. “A few times,” she told the officers, “When I did something that he didn’t like, he would grab me [by the throat] and he would pin me against the wall.” Ellie stated that she had tried to run away from home that morning due to Aaron’s abuse, and she had arranged for Gavin and his friend Russell Jones to pick her up. However, when Gavin and Russell arrived, Russell had been armed with a machete, which he had used to attack Aaron while he was sleeping.
Ellie insisted that she hadn’t known about any kind of plan to hurt her father, saying that as soon as she heard Aaron screaming, she had run away. However, the investigating officers didn’t believe that Ellie’s story was entirely true. In their eyes, Ellie had a strong motive for wanting her father gone - she wanted to continue her relationship with Gavin without anybody else interfering. It didn’t help that Ellie hadn’t started her police interview with lies - in fact, she had confidently lied about her own name, how old she was, and what grade she was in in high school.
The detectives told Russell about Ellie’s version of events, but although Russell admitted that Aaron had been attacked that morning, he claimed that Gavin had been the one to do it - and instead of a machete, he’d carried out the attack with a baseball bat. “[Gavin] goes into the living room,” Russell told the detectives,” [And] beats the crap out of the guy. I walked through the front door, and I [saw a] dead body.”
Several of Gavin’s friends agreed that he was the type of guy who would be willing to kill for someone he loved. One of his friends, Sylvia Delsman, later described Gavin as “loyal, and kind of ride or die”, saying, “He would absolutely go along with any sort of crazy plan.”
Although Russell insisted that he had only arrived at the house after Aaron Friar was already dead, he admitted that he had assisted Gavin to dispose of the body. The two men had wrapped Aaron’s body in a sheet of tarpaulin, then driven it to a remote location where they dumped it, along with the baseball bat that had been used to carry out the murder. Russell alleged that Ellie had helped with the disposal of her father’s body, explaining that she had been the one to throw the baseball bat to the ground at the dump site.
Shortly afterward, Russell proved that he was at least partially telling the truth by agreeing to show the detectives the dump site, where, sure enough, they found Aaron Friar’s remains. Aaron’s autopsy also supported Russell’s story - instead of machete wounds, he had been killed by blunt force trauma, as if he had been viciously beaten with a baseball bat. There was no sign that a machete had been involved at all.
Despite Russell’s help with the investigation, the detectives were disturbed by how little he seemed to care about the fact that he had just played a role in a brutal murder. “It’s just like [the] strangest thing ever,” Detective Bill Ford later said, “[Russell is] not emotional…he’s not upset. It’s all just a matter of fact, like it’s just another day.”
When Gavin MacFarlane learned that the body had been discovered, and that his friend had told detectives he was the killer, he admitted that he had been the one to murder Aaron. However, he claimed that he had only murdered Aaron to protect Ellie from her father’s abuse. Gavin alleged that he had recently found out that Ellie was pregnant, and when she confided in him about the abuse, he had been willing to do anything to help his girlfriend. However, he claimed that he hadn’t been the one to suggest murdering Aaron - in fact, it had been Ellie’s idea, although she didn’t want to be in the room while it happened. She’d told Gavin, “Go out in the front room, take him out, and [then] text me and let me know when it’s done.”
“I was just trying to protect Ellie. That’s what set me off,” Gavin said. “I was just really angry at that moment. The anger had just been building up because of the things that Ellie had been telling me.” Despite Ellie’s story about the machete, Gavin confirmed that Aaron had been killed with a baseball bat. He even went as far as to act out the murder, miming the way that he had fatally beaten Aaron. One thing that all three stories had in common was that Aaron had been sleeping on the couch in the living room when the attack began. He hadn’t even had a chance to fight back.
Despite Gavin’s belief that Ellie was pregnant, the investigation quickly revealed that this wasn’t true - although it wasn’t clear whether Gavin was lying to the cops, or whether Ellie had lied to her boyfriend. Medical testing showed that Ellie wasn’t pregnant, and that she also hadn’t lost a recent pregnancy. A thorough investigation into the Friar children showed no signs that Ellie had ever been physically abused, and neither of her younger sisters reported any instances of emotional or physical abuse.
Russell Jones was sentenced to 15 years of jail time after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, for his role in helping to dispose of Aaron’s body. As the person physically responsible for Aaron Friar’s death, Gavin MacFarlane received a life sentence after pleading guilty to murder, and is eligible for parole as early as 2043. Because of his romantic and sexual relationship with Ellie, who was underage, he was also charged with statutory rape.
Like Russell, Ellie Friar received a lighter sentence than Gavin - she was only sentenced to conspiracy to commit murder. She pled guilty, and received a 25-year sentence. In 2041, she will be 39 years old - and she will be eligible for parole. In the meantime, her two little sisters will be left with the knowledge that they were asleep in bed while their father was brutally murdered.
