Transcript
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The following is for mature audiences only.
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So if you want cool with dark, disturbing and depraved,
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you might want to keep it moving.
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Welcome to 10 Minute Murder.
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[MUSIC]
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10 Minute Murder.
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[MUSIC]
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Five teenagers headed into the Iowa Woods
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for a laid-back night of campfire vibes.
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Smoors, laughter, maybe some questionable sing-alongs,
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definitely ghost stories.
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It's the kind of wholesome fun that would make a norm
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in rock well-painting blush.
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By the end of the night, only one of them would walk out alive.
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What unfolded a Gitchi Manitou State Preserve
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is the kind of horror that makes you question everything.
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Who can you trust?
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How do you state brave when your world collapses?
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And most importantly, why did these three random guys
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with shotguns think playing fake cops was a good idea?
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We're digging into a story about survival, betrayal,
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and a crime so senseless, it defies logic.
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But before we get into that story,
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if you like your true crime brief and bingeable,
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you have found the right podcast.
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Tap the follow button now for access
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to at least two episodes per week.
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Now let's get into it.
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[MUSIC]
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[BLANK_AUDIO]
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In 1973, five teenagers headed into the serene woods
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of Gitchi Manitou State Preserve in Iowa
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for a night of campfire fun.
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Among them were Roger Esam, 17 years old, Stewart Bady, 18,
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his younger brother Dana, just 14, Michael Hadrith, 15,
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and Sandra Chesky, the group's youngest at only 13 years old.
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They were all just kids looking for a little escape,
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a night of laughter under the stars.
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As the evening wore on, Roger and Stewart stepped away
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from the campfire, gathering wood to keep their fire burning.
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That calm was shattered by the sound of snapping branches,
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quickly followed by two deafening gunshots.
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Both Roger and Stewart crumpled to the ground, lifeless.
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The sudden violence froze Dana, Michael, and Sandra in place.
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I'm sure of what to do.
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Their confusion deepened when the voice shouted from the darkness.
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Come out with your hands up.
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Out of the shadows stepped two men, shotguns in hand,
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looking ready to use them again.
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Dana, Michael, and Sandra were paralyzed.
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Were these men law enforcement?
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Were they trespassers?
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Were they even human?
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The teens had no answers, only fear.
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Sandra later recounted the terrifying moments that followed.
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Mike said, "Who in the hell do you think you are?"
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"Then I heard a gunshot, and Mike fell to the ground.
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I was standing right next to him.
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I fell to the ground."
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The two survivors left standing were Sandra and 14-year-old Dana.
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Sandra couldn't tell if Roger, Stewart, or Michael were still alive.
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The chaos was too overwhelming.
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Then a third man emerged from the shadows.
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His presence somehow worse than the violence they'd already witnessed.
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With a barrel of a gun pointed at them,
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the man corralled Sandra and Dana toward a truck parked nearby.
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The horror was only just beginning.
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In the chaos, Sandra realized something that felt like a faint spark of hope.
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Stewart and Michael were still alive.
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Michael clutched his arm, which had been torn apart by a shotgun blast.
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Stewart, though grievously wounded, cried out from the forest.
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His voice tinged with desperation and pain.
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But hope dissolved quickly into helplessness.
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Dana was forced to stand at gunpoint,
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listening to the agonizing sounds of his older brother bleeding out,
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powerless to intervene.
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The gunmen deliberated their conversation low and calculated.
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Then, without a word of explanation,
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they turned their attention to Sandra.
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She was bound at the wrists, tossed roughly into the bed of their truck like cargo.
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As the vehicle jolted into motion,
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Sandra managed to lift herself just enough to glimpse her friends one last time.
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Two of the men stayed behind.
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They marched, Stewart, Dana, and Michael back toward the forest,
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the setting of their last moments.
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Sandra didn't know it yet, but that would be the final time she ever saw them alive.
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The next morning, a couple cruising down a quiet road in their brand new car
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came across a grim scene.
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On the side of the road lay the bodies of Stewart, Dana, and Michael.
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Their lives, once so full of promise, had been brutally extinguished.
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Roger's body wouldn't be discovered until later.
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He had perished at the original campsite.
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For the families of these boys, the news was devastating,
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a gut punch from which they would never recover.
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But for Sandra, the nightmare wasn't over.
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She wasn't just mourning her friends.
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She was living a personal hell that no child should ever endure.
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As the truck rattled away from the park,
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the man sitting next to Sandra decided it was time to talk.
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He introduced himself with an air of authority that felt chillingly misplaced.
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He claimed he was an narcotics officer, and worse, that he was the boss.
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The other two men, he boasted, followed his every command.
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Sandra's survival, he told her, hinged on one thing.
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Absolute obedience.
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They arrived at a farmhouse where the other two men were already waiting.
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The boss stepped out to confer with them,
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while Sandra remained frozen in the truck.
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When one of the men returned, he climbed into the cab and stripped away the last shred of her childhood.
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He assaulted her, then sneered as if expecting gratitude.
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That wasn't so bad, was it?
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He said.
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Sandra, barely able to speak, told him she was only 13 and had been a virgin.
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Her words seemed to amuse him.
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When the boss resumed driving, it wasn't just to take Sandra home, not yet.
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They stopped and in a abandoned house.
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With a club in hand, he ordered her to follow him inside,
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muttering something about looking for critters.
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Sandra refused, standing her ground, despite the terror gripping her.
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Eventually, the boss abandoned the plan, deciding she wasn't worth the risk.
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"You're too young to get busted," he said, as if the sentiment were somehow a favor.
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He drove her home, and Sandra's ordeal finally ended,
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but her determination to bring justice to her friends was just beginning.
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Sandra's courage was extraordinary.
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In the aftermath of her trauma, she worked with law enforcement to retrace her steps,
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determined to identify the places and people responsible.
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One detail stood out from her memory, the farmhouse where the men had regrouped.
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Outside, there had been a red fuel tank.
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The boss had used it to refuel the truck before driving her home.
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It wasn't much to go on, but Sandra knew that it was the key to unlocking the case.
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And she was right.
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The red tank would soon lead investigators directly to the killers,
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turning the tide in a case that had shaken an entire community.
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Sandra's resilience paid off in a way that no one could have predicted.
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While driving through the area with Sheriff Craig Vincent, she spotted it,
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a red fuel tank, just like the one she remembered.
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They pulled over to investigate, but the case took an even sharper turn when a truck drove by.
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Behind the wheel was the boss.
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Sandra didn't hesitate.
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She identified the driver to the sheriff who arrested him on the spot.
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The boss, as it turned out, was Alan Fryer.
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The farmhouse with the red tank belonged to him and his two brothers, David and James.
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The pieces of Sandra's memory clicked perfectly into place.
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The truck matched, the farmhouse fit the description,
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and the brothers lined up with her accounts of the attackers.
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Down at the station, Alan wasted no time, spinning a tail that painted him as the victim.
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Yeah, he admitted it, he and his brothers had been in the woods that night.
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Yes, there had been a gunfight, but according to Alan,
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Sandra and her friends had been the aggressors.
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The fryers, he claimed, only returned fire in self-defense,
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and perhaps, just perhaps, one of the teenagers had been killed accidentally.
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The story didn't add up.
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Law enforcement pressed harder, and by the third round of questioning,
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Alan's version began to shift more toward the truth.
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He confessed that he and his brothers had spotted the teens drinking and smoking in the park.
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Their goal wasn't justice, it was robbery.
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From a ridge overlooking the campsite, the brothers had opened fire,
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killing Roger Esom instantly.
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Then came the cruel charade.
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The fryer brothers decided to impersonate narcotics officers,
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believing, absurdly, that this gave them free reign to kill at will.
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Over multiple interviews, Alan admitted that he had coldly calculated this act,
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showing no remorse.
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Sandra's memory proved vital.
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She identified all three fryer brothers and lineups with chilling accuracy.
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David Fryer, corroborated Alan's confession,
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admitting to the murders and their twisted impersonation scheme.
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But James Fryer, he had more skeletons in his closet and wasn't ready to play along.
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James, as you might have guessed, was the man identified as her rapist,
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but that wasn't his only secret.
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At the time of the murders, James had been part of a work-release program.
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To cover his tracks that night, he had called his parole officer,
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pretending to be his boss.
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He claimed he needed to work an extra shift, which excused his absence from roll call.
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The plan worked temporarily, but James's lies unraveled under scrutiny,
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facing charges of murder, rape, and parole violation, James turned desperate.
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He blamed Alan and David for the murders, claiming that he had nothing to do with it.
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He went a step further, accusing Sandra of fabricating the assault.
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According to James, not only had Sandra not been raped,
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but she had wanted to sleep with him, and even David,
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he painted her as an eager participant, laughing and enjoying herself while her friends were being slaughtered.
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The audacity of this defense stunned investigators, but not enough to sway them.
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No one believed James's story.
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In the end, all three friar brothers were convicted of first-degree murder
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and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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Their gruesome crime misguided in personation scheme,
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and their callous treatment of Sandra sealed their fate.
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Justice was served, though it could never undo the heartbreak and trauma endured by Sandra
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and the families of the victims.
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That's 10 Minute Murder for today.
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Brief and bingeable true crime.
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I'm Joe, I'm the host, and thank you for taking the time to listen.
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New listeners, make sure you subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts.
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Also connect on social media, links for that are in the show notes of this episode
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or you can just type 10 Minute Murder into wherever you're trying to find the show,
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and it's gonna pop up.
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You can go to 10minutemurder.com, that's gonna be the resource for all things related to the podcast.
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And I know you hear me drone on and on about the importance of if you enjoy this podcast,
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leave a rating and review, and also sharing it with your friends and family.
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But as it relates to the ratings and reviews, you've heard me say that it helps other people find the show,
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and that's why it's so important.
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If you're a new listener and you're like, "I don't know if this podcast sucks or not, it might be good."
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It might not be. I don't know.
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Let's look at the reviews and then you scroll through them and if they all like, "Man, this guy blows."
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It was even doing.
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He sounds like he's talking in a bathroom. There's so much echo.
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And obviously, you're not gonna listen to that podcast, right?
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So that's why I mentioned it.
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But the review that I recently got for my other podcast, 10 Minute Mystery, it did something else to me.
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It kind of re-inspired me or remotivated me into what I'm doing here with 10 Minute Murder and 10 Minute Mystery.
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Because sometimes I can get trapped inside my own head world with what I'm doing and think, "Well, I mean, who even listens to this thing?"
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Like, you do that. I'm sure you do that too.
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Like, where you just kind of get down on yourself from an end then.
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And I was doing that a little bit today and then I read this review.
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And let me just read it too and you understand why.
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It pulled me completely out of that funk.
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Here's the review.
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Joe hits another one out of the park.
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Joe was managed to create yet another amazing podcast that is entertaining and informative without drowning in you in details.
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This is why the word "bingible" was created.
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Did I even spell that correctly? And is that even a word?
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Anyways, if you love 10 Minute Murder and if you haven't checked that out, then definitely give that a listen.
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You will love this just the same.
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Joe's quirky and distinctive voice makes you wish he was a voiceover for all your podcasts.
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No wonder why people keep writing him and asking his opinion on topics outside of the show.
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It's because his voice and his demeanor makes you want to sit down and chat with him like he was an old friend.
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Best 10 Minute Indulgence in Podcasting.
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Now, do you see what I mean?
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I read that today and it made my heart do happy things.
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So whoever you are that wrote that I really do appreciate it and it means a lot to me.
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And that's going to do it. That is your episode for today.
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Thank you so much for listening to 10 Minute Murder.
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murder.
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[Music]
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[Music]
